Fearful Symmetry
by Alethnya
Summary: Rey is still searching for her place. Kylo Ren is determined that he knows his. Bound together in a way that they can neither fully understand or explain, they continue to walk their chosen paths, despite the pull they feel to one another. They cannot undo what has been done...and as time passes, they become less certain that they would even want to try. Post TLJ. Reylo.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: A year or so ago, I posted the first chapter of a Reylo story that ended up going nowhere for me, creativity-wise. In the wake of The Last Jedi, I think I have found my inspiration once more. So I have reworked and rewritten and here's what I've come up with!**

 **Thanks, as ever, to my beta - my sweet little sis - Kylo-Rey-Kenobi (the artist formerly known as Xaraphis). She has been pushing me to write again after such a long time away, and here I am, giving it a shot!**

 **So here goes, nothing!**

* * *

It is in dreams that Kylo Ren – Supreme Leader of the First Order and de facto ruler of the galaxy – is weakest.

Deep within the darkest reaches of the night, when his anger has quieted…it is then that his memories haunt him. They are insidious things, slithering up from far below to torment him; slashing and tearing at the heart he has spent too many years denying.

He sees his mother there, sharp-eyed and brilliant. She looms large over the barren landscape of his sleeping mind – a woman of strength and passion and unrelenting integrity. It has been over a decade since last he stood before her, but in his dreams, he remembers her smile…her laugh…the warmth of her touch as she ran gentle fingers through his hair.

There is a part of him that misses her still. It is small, but distinct – a phantom ache that feels exactly like the press of her lips upon his brow. It had stayed his hand as his Silencer bore down upon the Resistance Cruiser that carried her all those months prior…and he strongly suspected that it would stay his hand again in the future.

In the absence of his once-Master's prying and safe within his own unconscious mind, he can and does admit the truth…

He loves his mother. He will _always_ love his mother…even if he can never forgive her.

His father is a fleeting presence and far more difficult to pin down. He is there and gone again, just as he had been through all the years of Ben Solo's childhood. Sometimes though…sometimes he is more solid and far too vivid. When his shadow shuffles up from the most deeply buried corners of memory, desperate and pleading – those are the worst times. He stands with his hand extended – but never, _ever_ taken – before he falls and falls and falls away…

Even in sleep, Ren shies away from that red-stained flicker of Han Solo. The pain that halos his father's presence in his mind is a reminder of his greatest failure – a symptom of the weakness that was meant to have been exorcised at the end of his blade.

A weakness that lives within him still – the heart that had ached for the approval of a father who had feared him far more than he had loved him.

His uncle has always been there as well, though he is an entirely different sort of ghost – far more _real_ than the parents who had given him up at such a young age. For years, he had been the stuff of terrors – large and looming and lit with green, flickering light, just as he had been, all those years ago.

In the months since Crait, though, a new Luke has taken shape, gained focus. Far from a monster, his old Master ( _his uncle_ ) has become the cool, serene presence that waits, always, on the very precipice of the chasm where he buries his guilt.

It is narrow, but deep, this chasm; a jagged fissure that lies buried deep within his subconscious mind – as close to forgotten as he is physically capable of achieving. At the bottom of that gaping maw that should not exist, but _does_ , lies – amongst far too many other things – the smoldering ruins of a ravaged temple and the scattered bodies of those that he had once called friends.

The pull of the Light is strongest there, in the very place where he had first sought to extinguish it entirely. There is danger in the glow that emanates from those bloody, black depths; a danger that he recognizes and avoids, even in his sleep.

It is a source of endless frustration for him, that lingering radiance. He has thrown his arms wide, embraced the Dark in every possible way he can imagine – in the _worst_ possible way that he can imagine – and yet it remains.

But when he sleeps…

 _Hazel eyes, staring up into his in the lift carrying them up, up, up and begging him far more eloquently than words ever could, lit from within by an intrinsic goodness that calls to him even as he recoils from it._

When he sleeps, he finds himself face to face with the very things that he most wishes to forget.

 _The same eyes, swimming with tears as she lays herself open to him, reaches out for him, caresses his hand and gathers the tatters of his ragged soul between her small, slim fingers._

And tonight…

Tonight – like too many nights, of late – he dreams of _her_.

 _Those eyes again, staring at him across the length of the bridge that has been forged between them; hard, resolved as she reaches up and activates the switch, closing the door between them with a finality that causes his breath to catch and burn in his throat._

He bolts up in bed, gasping, arm flinging out, reaching towards the empty shadows that surround him…

 _Rey._

She is the newest addition to the pantheon of his nightly tortures and by far the most difficult to ignore.

Once his breaths have evened, he lowers his arm to the bed, the hand that had reached for the ghost of her curling into a fist, his skin prickling with the memory of her touch; the warm, gentle glide of her skin against his.

She had been so…so _warm_ …

Throwing back the thin sheet that had twisted around his sweat-drenched body, Kylo Ren sits up before turning to drop his feet to the floor, relishing the chill bite of the bare metal against his skin. The air around him is cold as well, sending a shiver down his spine.

Dragging a furious hand backwards through his hair, palm grazing the very top of the scar that bisects his face, he steels himself against the echoes of his dream. She has haunted him for the better part of a year now, his ability to resist her shrinking in direct proportion to the waxing strength of the Bond that tethers them. She has fascinated from the very first moment he laid eyes on her and she nearly consumed him whole with little more than the brush of her fingers against his…

And then it _had_ consumed him whole, devouring him utterly as she stood, so proud and true before the throne of a monster.

She had stood at his back that day, fought at his side.

It had been a euphoric feeling – the _belonging,_ the _rightness_ of it – and a fleeting one, not meant to last.

Not for him, blood-soaked and blackened as he was. A point driven well and truly home by the door she had closed between them, sealing herself off from him in more ways than one – at least, for a time.

The Bond is, as they have discovered in the weeks and months since, far more resolute than either of them…which is, he must admit, singularly impressive.

Shoving himself to his feet, he crosses the room to where his discarded clothing lies, draped over the back of the single, narrow chair. He dresses in contemplative silence, burying himself beneath layer upon layer of coarse, black fabric; the itch of the weave is an odd sort of comfort as it rasps across his skin. His shoulders relax beneath the weight of his chosen armor, and a puff of relief escapes from between the tight line of his generous lips.

He feels more himself already, and it is as he is pulling on his gloves that he feels it…the _pull_ …

 _Rey…_

* * *

Even on Jakku, she had heard the stories. Tales of the Empire…of the Rebellion…of the Jedi. Though the bulk of her dreaming had been of starships, there had been times – now and again – when she had reached toward the highest star of all…

What must it have been like, she had wondered, to be a _Jedi_?

She still wonders, sometimes, though she well knows that she will never truly bear that mantle. Not when there is no one left to show her how.

 _You need a teacher…_

The words whisper through her mind, spoken in echoing unison by two very different voices – both of which spark two very different aches of longing in her chest. One is bittersweet, a memory she will cherish; a lost opportunity that she will always mourn. The other…

The other she ignores. Entirely.

Curled over the body of her speeder, Rey weaves between the thick trunks of very tall trees and in and out of the dappled shadows cast by the sun trickling down through their heavy boughs. Her eyes focus forward, even as she forces her mind backward; ten months fall away and she is once more standing before Luke Skywalker on a rocky, sea-soaked hilltop, heart in her throat as she offered him his old lightsaber.

She can still remember what it felt like – the flash of hope when he took it.

The stomach-churning disappointment when he tossed it so unceremoniously over his shoulder before stalking away from her without so much as a word.

The man she had found on Ahch-To was far too broken to be the savior the Resistance had needed – or the teacher she had dreamt of – but he had, in the end, given her far more than their initial meeting had suggested he would. He had given her a foundation, a basic understanding upon which greater knowledge and power could be built.

It wasn't at all what she'd hoped for, but it was, at the very least, _something_.

Not that it had prepared her in any way for what had come after, but still.

 _Something_.

Looking back, she isn't sure why she was surprised. Life, she has found, has a peculiar way of always being precisely what you _don't_ want it to be.

 _Not that I disagree, but…when did you become so fatalistic?_

Gritting her teeth and refusing to look anywhere but at the landscape before her, Rey pretends she didn't feel the jolt that goes through her at the sound of _his_ voice in her head.

 _I've no idea,_ she shoots back before she can stop herself. _Care to wager a guess, Supreme Leader?_

She can _feel_ his sigh as if it were her own and she _hates_ it.

For a long moment, there is silence in her head though she knows perfectly well that he's still there, and then…

 _What are you doing? Everything around you is a blur._

They've gotten better at this, over the long months that lie between Crait and now; they have more control over it - can see more, feel more. They have learned how to turn it off and turn it on, though there are still times when it has a mind entirely its own. They have also discovered that actually speaking has become unnecessary, their minds so well attuned that they can communicate by thought rather than word.

She chooses to pretend that doesn't terrify her, though she can admit that it's far simpler this way. It certainly makes for less odd looks from her friends and comrades. She'd grown very tired, very quickly of being known as the odd girl who argued passionately with blank walls and empty hallways.

From time to time, she wonders if he has encountered the same difficulties…but then she remembers what he has become, and she doubts that anyone would _dare_ question Supreme Leader Kylo Ren.

That name – the _wrong_ name – leaves a bitter taste on her tongue, particularly when paired with that title and she leans further over the speeder, hardening herself to him as best she can.

 _That is none of your business._

 _Rey…_

Her heart thumps hard in her chest and she shudders.

 _Go. Away._

Another sigh – deeper this time, and edged with resignation.

 _Fine._

He was gone then, leaving a gaping emptiness in her mind where his had been only moments before. Almost instantly, longing surges up from within her, leaving her insides aching and her throat tight as she bites down on the urge to call him back to her – to bridge the distance between them once more.

She hates this thing…this _Bond_ , between them. It has complicated her life in ways beyond measure, tying her irrevocably to a man she wants to hate, but can't.

A man she wants to love, but won't.

A man her head commands her to destroy and her heart demands that she save, leaving the rest of her to languish in the confused middle ground that lies between the two and Rey is, quite frankly, _exhausted_ by all of it.

Her life has become a constant battle between conscience and sentiment and all she can think of is how very, very unfair it all is.

She hadn't asked for this.

But now, she has it…

And she's terrified to admit just how much she _wants_ it.

As she curves sharply around a particularly large tree, turning until her body is nearly parallel to the grassy ground tearing by beneath her, Rey swallows hard behind her helmet and scarf.

She is so very tired, she decides, of being so very _afraid_ all the time.

The trees fall away suddenly, the brightness of the unobstructed light nearly blinding as the land before her opens up into a swath of wide, flat plain. It is dotted here and there with the tall, twisting spires of crystal that Alvorine is known for, but none of them stand between her speeder and the edge of the plateau that falls away sharply half a mile ahead. Rey's grin widens and she presses her heels down, accelerating hard, reveling in the adrenaline that spikes through her blood and drowns out everything else.

Perhaps this isn't the healthiest way of dealing with her problems…but it is, by far, the easiest…

Less than fifty feet from the edge, she pushes her toes down, braking hard. Her speeder kicks sideways before it skids to a stop just shy of the drop off. Hopping off, she walks to the edge and peers down into the valley below. It isn't terribly deep – perhaps only a hundred feet or so down to the grass-covered floor below the canopy of trees that loom above it – but it is far wider than she had anticipated, and she narrows her eyes, skimming over the tree tops and attempting to pick out some sign of the ancient temple complex that is rumored to reside within.

Her eyes drift to the west and suddenly, she feels it. It is faint – a mere flicker of power; _old_ power – but it is enough.

She knows her course now.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: Another chapter so quickly! I'm quite proud of myself, to be honest. Thank you so much to everyone who has read, reviewed, followed and/or favorited - every single one of you is helping me find my confidence in this whole writing thing again!**

 **Kylo-Rey-Kenobi...love you and thank you, sis!**

* * *

There is knowledge, she has discovered, scattered across the map of the galaxy. Scratched into cavern walls on backwater planets, scrawled across parchment and vellum in dusty libraries, and recorded on Holocrons hidden away in long forgotten temples and shrines, both Jedi and Sith alike.

Rey, in the absence of an _actual_ teacher, has decided that she will learn the lessons for herself, as best she can. _All_ of the lessons. She hunts knowledge as others do wealth or influence — and she is voracious in her indiscriminate greed for it.

General Organa - _Leia_ , she reminds herself - had been somewhat less than pleased the first time she had returned to base with a satchel full of Sith Holocrons in tow. It had made the older woman uncomfortable, the Darkness in them setting her and every other Force-Sensitive member of the Resistance ranks on edge.

Rey alone had been immune to the discomfort; could not even understand why they _were_ uncomfortable — a fact that had only served to make Leia even _more_ concerned.

Which was not to say that Rey could not feel the Darkness rolling off the Holos in thick waves — because she certainly _could_. It just...didn't bother her.

On the contrary, it called to her; drew her in. _Fascinated_ her.

She had done her best to explain, imagining that Leia, of all people might understand…

 _Rey, if you're trying to make me feel better about all this, you're doing a really awful job of it._

After the next two such occasions, the General had just stopped asking about her finds altogether, which suited Rey just fine. She was, quite frankly, tired of having to try to explain something that made perfect sense to her and none at all to anyone else.

As she picks her way through the undergrowth, following the thrum of power that draws her like a lodestone, she wonders if this will be yet another discovery that she will have to keep to herself…

 _ **He**_ _would listen._ _ **He**_ _would understand._

Rey ignores the fleeting thought with bitter determination, focusing instead on the task at hand with renewed vigor. If she can withstand _his_ cajoling, she can certainly withstand the traitorous bits of her that agree with him.

She has been searching for the better part of two hours when she stumbles across the first, crumbling remains of what _must_ be the temple complex she is seeking. She lays a palm against the stone, shivering to feel that faded tremble of power vibrating up toward her from deep inside. There is an edge to it — a wildness that is somehow both exhilarating and terrifying all at once.

It is also oddly... _familiar_ …

Rey's eyes slip shut as memory stirs. In the theater of her mind a pale blue blade ignites, plunging through twisted flesh and rotted sinew before flying into her waiting hand and then, _he_ is there, at her back, all strength and focus. They move together, they _breathe_ together — she can feel him; his dark, glorious energy blending with hers, the two halves of them seeming to come together into one glorious, perfect _whole..._

Her eyes fly open and she pulls her hand back from the stone as if it has burnt her. Of all the things about that day that she has tried to forget, it is _this_ that has been the hardest to banish.

Never, in the whole of her life, has she ever felt more _complete_ than she did then. It was why she had assumed — naively perhaps — that he had felt the same way.

To feel it again now…

She shakes her head, shaking off her confusion.

She wants to understand, and the only way to do that is to continue on. If there are answers here, she _will_ find them.

Decided, she moves further into the overgrown ruins, reaching behind her to draw her staff down from across her back and settling it comfortably into her hands. She does not sense any danger, but she has learned from hard experience that not all threats are so easily detected.

The forest floor is thick with leaf litter that crunches beneath her boots, so she steps carefully, toeing under the top layer of ground cover before stepping fully. It works, mostly, and the sounds of her footfalls virtually disappear amidst the chorus that nature sings around her. As she advances, the buildings grow larger - though no less time-worn - and more frequent until finally she finds herself on the edge of what must once have been a large, open square. She can pick out the remnants of half-collapsed buildings surrounding the edges of the space, but the bulk of her attention is stolen by what is clearly the temple proper.

Larger than she had expected, its stone spires stretch toward the sky above, dripping with creeping ivies and trailing lianas. It is a magnificent structure, carved out of the very escarpment that rings this odd little valley. Rey is entranced by the sight and stands straight, one hand lifting to push her goggles up onto her forehead so that she can admire the structure without obstruction.

The sun breaks from behind a cloud, sending a shaft of light down through the loosely woven canopy above. She squints against it, lifts a hand to shade her eyes and catches a glint of something hiding beneath the flora that stretches from one side of the main entrance to the other.

All early caution forgotten in the face of discovery, Rey slings her staff back into place across her shoulders and makes her way up to where that tantalizing glimmer still hides beneath too many twisting vines. It takes barely a thought to lift herself off the ground, and only one more to sweep the rock clear and suddenly, she finds herself at eye level with a symbol that she knows she has never seen before.

At least, not entirely.

Two spirals - one light, one dark - are set into the stone there. They curl around and away from one another, weave together and pull apart. Rey reaches out, brushing tentatively against the gleaming stones; calloused fingers tracing along each rough-hewn whorl.

There is no tension in the lines of it; no struggle. Rather, the twin shapes almost seem to move together. To _dance_.

 _He is a solid, unrelenting presence at her back and she presses into him, reveling in the raw, raging strength of him. She can_ _ **feel**_ _his Darkness as if it is a living, breathing thing. It reaches out toward her and something within her — some part of her that she still barely knows — reaches right back and oh, how it makes the blood in her veins_ _ **sing**_ _..._

Rey sucks in a sharp breath, yanking her hand back. She drops to the ground, takes a moment. Attempts to center herself.

There is something about this place…

A pulse of power; a shiver within the Force sends Rey stumbling forward, _pulled_ into the shadows that lay within. Something... _calls_ to her…

It never even occurs to her not to answer.

* * *

There are times when he wonders why he ever allowed Snoke to shove him into a mask — because, for all the old bastard's derision, the form and figure of _Kylo Ren_ had been entirely of _his_ design.

But this...this is decidedly _not_ one of those times.

On the contrary, at this very moment, he longs for the anonymity that cursed mask offered, because he cannot remember the last time he was this _bored_.

He sits at the head of a table in one of the many conference rooms aboard the _Finalizer_. Generals line each long side — some in the flesh, others in image alone. At the other end of the table, Hux stands before a data screen of schematics and purchase orders, detailing the production timeline of a new run of gunships and frigates.

The ginger irritant has been droning on about it for nearly an hour now and he is having a very hard time schooling his features into a neutral expression. Despite what most would believe, he _does_ understand the necessity of such meetings — he had, after all, grown up at the knee of one of the most efficient leaders the Galaxy had ever known — but he is swiftly coming to realize that he is not built for the boardroom.

Hux, who is pointedly ignoring his presence, has made it clear that his attendance here is unnecessary — Supreme Leader Snoke had, after all, been more than happy to leave the day to day details in the hands of his trusted Generals.

It was true...and if there was even a single General in the entire First Order Navy that he honestly believed he could trust, then perhaps he would have done the same.

But he there is not, and so he does not. Until such time as that changes, he will continue to sit in on these meetings, lest some begin to forget just who precisely is in control of this lumbering behemoth of theirs.

 _Ben?_

He stiffens, spine going straight and gloved hand curling into a fist where it rests atop the durasteel tabletop. Her voice in his head was tentative and he got the distinct feeling that she hadn't fully intended to ignite their connection. Remembering her somewhat less than cordial dismissal earlier that morning, he grit his teeth...and ignored her.

She did it to him often enough; perhaps if he offered her the same, she would come to understand just how frustrating it was to be brushed aside.

 _Ben...please…_

His breath catches; stunned to hear _that_ word, in _her_ voice. It was truly unfair, the sheer magnitude of the power she held over him, this infuriating scavenger girl from the back of beyond.

He tries to stay focused though; tries to pretend that his heart is not galloping in his chest. _Now isn't a good time_ , he sends across their link. _I'm busy._

There. That sounds suitably aloof, he thinks.

 _It_ _ **hurts**_ _, Ben…_

And just that quickly, he is not thinking at all. He surges to his feet so fast that the chair he was sitting in tips over backwards, crashing to the floor with a clatter that draws the attention of everyone in the room.

Vaguely, he hears Hux call his name — he pays him no mind. Can't see or hear anything beyond the trembling echo of her pain and fear.

 _Rey. What hurts, Rey? What happened?_

He is almost running in his rush to get to his rooms, not caring in the slightest who he knocks over in his haste for privacy.

 _My leg,_ comes her choked response. _I think...it must have been venomous…_

The words make sense, but tell him nothing, though the _venomous_ hits him square in the gut and pours ice water into his veins. He is running now, all pretense swept aside in the face of her distress.

He flings his hand out as he approaches his chamber and the door wrenches open ahead of him. Another flick of his wrist and the moment it slides back shut behind him, he faces the empty space before him and flings the Bond open wide — as wide as either of them ever have before.

Immediately, she is in front of him, back propped against a fallen column of stone, small hands pressed desperately against a bleeding wound in her leg. He is at her side in the space between heartbeats, falling to his knees at her side, his far larger hands knocking hers aside so that he can examine the wound.

"Ben…"

He cannot afford to be distracted, but knows that he will never forget that particular inflection of her voice. He does not know that anyone has ever been _relieved_ to see him before…

The wound is not particularly deep, but the skin around it glows an angry red that concerns him. He brings his hand to his mouth, bites the tip of one finger and pulls off his glove, spits it aside. He lays his bare palm lightly against her skin, earning him a gasp of pain that makes his insides twist.

"Sorry," he says, glances up at her quickly before looking back down again. He closes his eyes, reaches out with his senses.

"Don't apologize," she hisses from between her teeth, though there is none of the usual bite to her words. "Not for this — not for helping me."

He does not answer, too focused on the task at hand. Power flows through him like a river, pouring into her, drawing out the venom that had been crawling its vicious, viscous way through her bloodstream. A few minutes later, he hears her pull in a deep breath, followed by a sigh of utter relief and he can _feel_ her body relax as the air leaves her lungs.

"Better?"

She actually laughs at that, a small trilling thing that sends a flare of warmth straight to the center of his chest. _He earned a laugh_...

"Gods, yes," she groans and he tilts his head up just in time to see her reach up and yank her hood down before swiping a gloved hand across her sweat-drenched forehead. It leaves a smear of blood in its wake and he feels his stomach roll at the sight.

Without thinking, he reaches out with his naked hand, yanking the cowl the rest of the way off her head and wiping away that offensive streak of red. His eyes meet hers briefly before he drops the now-stained bit of fabric into her lap. "Your hands are bloody," he says curtly, his fear for her — a terror like none he has ever known — beginning to drain away.

It leaves him edgy; shaking with the knowledge of what would have happened had they not been tethered so tightly to one another.

The venom in her veins had been plentiful...and virulent. Had it been allowed to run its course…

He swallows against the bile that burns the back of this throat. Cannot bring himself to even _think_ the word.

"Well...that's these pants done, then."

He looks down. She is fingering the ragged hole that lays now above a wound that is doubtless painful, but no longer fatal. She looks up at him then and she is smiling, hazel eyes glinting with amusement.

He finds nothing amusing about this situation at all.

Growling, he pushes up to his feet, whirling away from her. "I'm not going to bother asking what the _hell_ you were doing out here alone in what I suspect is the middle of absolutely nowhere…"

"Smart, that," she quips, "since I wouldn't have told you if you did."

She is not taking this seriously. He has never been so righteously furious in his entire life. "Do you have _any_ idea what could have…". He stops, rounds on her, glaring down at her hotly. "You could have _died_ , Rey."

She huffs, somewhere between annoyed and flustered. "Yeah. I know. Sorry about that."

His eyes narrow dangerously. " _Sorry?"_

She shifts uncomfortably and he can feel her temper flare up to meet his own. "Is there something else I should say instead? I've not had the advantage of a royal upbringing, you see, so you'll forgive me if I don't know all the proper protocols…"

"Do _not_ be flippant about this!"

She huffs, turns her face away from him. After a moment, her shoulders droop. "I didn't mean to upset you," she says, softer now, her anger spent for the time being. "I shouldn't have called for you. I didn't actually mean to, if that helps? It just...I was scared and it was just...instinct."

Later, he knows that he will revel in that offhand admission; those words - the meaning hidden behind them - more precious to him than she could ever comprehend. For now though, he sets them aside.

"You calling to me is _not_ the problem. You needing my help at all is the problem."

She draws back as if he has struck her, pulling away from him both physically and mentally. "I _told_ you it was an accident. I'll make sure it never happens again, so you needn't worry."

He is certain of it then — there is no one in the great wide swath of the Galaxy as infuriating as she is.

"You," he spits, "are _impossible._ You shouldn't need my help, Rey, because you should have been able to help yourself - or have you forgotten the near limitless power that lies at your command?"

Her cheeks flush, her embarrassment so thick that it hangs like a cloud around the both of them and for the first time in a long time, he doesn't feel even the slightest pang of remorse at being the cause of her discomfort.

"I...I didn't know." She stops, jaw clenching - he watches the play of muscles beneath her skin, along the column of her neck; ignores the way his fingers twitch, longing to touch. "I had no idea that you could...do that. With the Force, I mean."

She says it simply. Humbly. Ashamed of her ignorance.

Now...now he feels the guilt bubble up inside of him; now he is the one whose jaw clenches. His anger vanishes, the fog of it burned away by the too-bright truth of her, and he is left with nothing but a lingering frustration. For her, this time, rather than at her.

"Rey," he says her name softly, savoring the shape of it on his tongue.

She hears the change in his voice and her head tilts back, hazel eyes wide and wounded. He takes a step toward her and then another, lowers himself down to one knee before her, meeting her eyes squarely and firmly for the first time in this exchange.

"When I told you that you needed a teacher, this is what I meant."

Her eyes narrow ever so slightly, some of her vulnerability falling away. "It wasn't all you meant."

His lips twist, the grin wry and half-formed. "No, it wasn't," he agrees, because there is no point attempting to lie to her; she would feel the falsehood before it had fully passed his lips. "But it was part of it. You forget - I know how it is for you. I remember. We have so much power, you and I. The big things come easy. It's the small things - the simple things - that we need help with."

She is staring at him now as if she has never seen him before - and perhaps she hasn't. Not so completely, at least. He cannot remember ever having been so simply himself with anyone in the whole of his adult life as he has just been with her.

"I…" she stops and he holds his breath as her arm lifts and small, skilled fingers brush gently against the arm that rests across his knee. "Thank you, Ben."

Her words are a balm to wounds he had forgotten every existed; her gratitude so simple and heartfelt that it takes every ounce of self-control he has not to grab her hand, pull her to him, press his lips against the beat of the pulse in her wrist.

Aware of just how quickly she would pull away should he even attempt such a thing, he masters himself, burying the temptation beneath the concerns he still has for her well-being.

"Please," he says, holding her eyes with purposeful intent. "I know you won't learn from me, but please, Rey...find someone to teach you to heal yourself." A memory strikes him; a flash of remembrance that feels like relief. "Kanata. Maz Kanata - you have met her, have you not?"

The name clearly sparks a memory for her as well - her eyes flash, her anger at him bleeding back into her face. "I have, yes. Just before you blew up her home and took me prisoner."

She is packing herself away again; he can see it in her body language. Can feel her annoyance with herself flare across their Bond - she has been weak, she thinks, to have let him in as she did. Weak and foolish, to have forgotten what he was. What he is.

He sighs - back to square one. He ignores her barbs this time, too intent on her safety to argue semantics with her. "Perfect. She'll be able to help you. Find her."

Without giving her a chance to respond - he doesn't have the stomach to argue with her; not today - he cuts the connection between them.

For a long time, he stays as he is, kneeling on the floor, eyes on the stars streaking past against the blackness of space.

They cannot continue like this.

But he cannot fathom either of them bending enough to do anything else...

* * *

 **Next up...what the hell happened to Rey? What, if anything, did she find in the temple? Stay tuned, kids! :)**


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: Holy CRAP! I am absolutely blown away by the reception this story has had so far! Thank you SO MUCH to everyone who is reading, following, etc. Sorry about the length of time between chapters, but what can I say except CHRISTMAS. I'm hoping the next chapter won't take a week, but I've got a lot going on over the next few days, so we'll just have to wait and see. But be assured, more chapters will be coming soon!**

 **Big ol' thanks goes out to kylo-rey-kenobi, my beta-extraordinaire! Seriously, folks, she bullies me into being a better writer and I love it!**

* * *

It is easy, when he's in front of her, to forget why indulging their connection is a _bad idea_. Talking to him is natural, like breathing. Even when they are snapping and snarling at one another, she feels...comfortable, in a way that she can't even begin to explain.

In a way that she doesn't want to _try_ to explain, to be honest.

But then, the conversation - the _connection_ \- ends. Life settles back into its normal shape and form around her and suddenly, the remembrance of who and what he is hits her like a fist - _like a lightsaber through the heart -_ and she is suddenly furious. Every time.

Furious with him. Furious with fate for seeing fit to tie her to him.

Furious with _herself_ for letting him in again when she has sworn that she won't. For allowing herself to forget where they stand for even a moment. For the tiny flame of hope for him that she just _cannot_ extinguish.

For the way she can't seem to figure out how to hate him the way she _knows_ that she is supposed to.

This time is no different.

Rey sits in the dirt, broken stone rough against her back as the world expands back into full focus around her, staring at the empty space in front of her where he had just been. Frustration - at him for leaving so quickly; at herself for caring that he had - bubbles, molten beneath her skin and she tips her head back with a huff, tearing her eyes away from the Ben-shaped void that seems burnt into the air itself.

It doesn't help. She doesn't see the leaves and branches of the canopy that arches overhead; is blind to the brilliant sunlight that trickles down through it, painting mottled shapes and shadows on the ground below. Instead, all she can see is _him_ , exploding across their bond - a dark, wild thing with eyes only for _her_. She sees the intensity of his focus while he healed her; the fear buried beneath the anger he spit at her, after.

The aching tenderness in him as he once more stepped out from behind the mask that is Kylo Ren and showed her the man - damaged and broken and so, so lonely - that yet lives within the monster.

 _We have so much power, you and I…_

His voice whispers the words into her memory, soft and beguiling - the truest glimpse of _Ben_ that she has had in _months_ , if not _ever_. Ben Solo cares about her; she has known that for some time now. But it has never been so blatantly on display as it was today and she finds that a much larger part of her than she is comfortable with likes that far more than it should.

She doesn't want him to care about her. It makes it very difficult to convince herself that she doesn't give a damn about _him_.

" _Idiot_ ," she growls, smacking a tightly fisted hand down against the ground beside her. "Foolish, _stupid_ idiot."

She isn't sure whether she's talking about him...or herself.

Either way, it cannot happen again. She knows that. She cannot give into this _thing_ between them. For months, she has held him beyond arm's length, showing him nothing but the sharpest edge of her temper and tongue. Today had been a mistake; a loss of focus on her part.

One she doesn't intend to make again.

She plans to utterly ignore the fact that she hadn't intended to make it this time either.

In the meantime, she has things to do - a path to uncover and a purpose to understand - and for right now, Ben Solo is just going to have to _wait_.

Slowly, she pushes herself to her feet, grits her teeth. Her leg hurts, but the pain is manageable now; nothing like it was before and quite frankly, she welcomes the focus it brings. She puts all her weight on it, bounces a little. Once she is satisfied that it will not hinder her, she turns back toward the main entrance to the temple - specifically to the base of the steps that lead up to it.

There, at the foot of them, lies a large, bulbous mass that has finally stopped twitching.

Rey moves toward it, limping slightly and bends down to collect her staff from where it lays amongst the leaves. She stops near - but not _too_ near - to the heaping blob of flesh, extending her bo toward it, jabbing at it.

She has no idea what it is, beyond some subterranean lifeform that had not taken kindly to her intrusion into its home, but she makes a note to do a bit of research on it later. It had put up a hell of a fight, as the now throbbing wound in her thigh could testify to, and she wants to be able to put a name to it.

Worthy opponents do not, after all, only come in all black.

Satisfied now that the beast will be posing no further threat, she lowers her staff. A breeze rustles through the trees, as warm and humid-heavy as the air around her and Rey wipes a dirty arm across her brow with a grimace.

She is accustomed to heat, but not heat like _this_ , heavy and wet and stifling.

Turning away from the corpse of her fallen foe, she hobbles the few feet to the temple, braces one hand on one of the column remnants and lowers herself gingerly to sit on one of the more-intact steps. She is tired, from so much more than just the physical exertion, and she can think of few things she wants to do less than travel all the way back the way she'd come.

Luckily for her, she doesn't have to.

She pulls the satchel on her back around to her front and reaches into one of the outer pouches, drawing out her comm.

"Chewie?"

The ululating roar she receives in immediate response is pointed and brief, it's meaning clear.

 _Where the hell have you been?_

She cannot stop the grin that bends her lips then, warmed by his concern. "I've been longer than I expected and I'm sorry," she says around her smile. "And I promise you can yell at me all you like once I'm back on board, but right now, I need your help."

It doesn't take much to convince Chewie to bring the Falcon to her - and Rey is thankful beyond words that it is even an option. She'll still have to walk a bit to get to a clearing large enough for the Falcon to land, but she can well manage a quarter mile.

Once that is settled, she stows her comm again and is just about to shift her satchel back into place behind her when she feels it again. The same _pull_ that had led her deep into the maze of tunnels beyond the temple entrance that gapes wide behind her.

It is closer now, though, and Rey cannot fight the way it draws her in. She reaches into the main compartment of her bag, drawing out the thing that is still calling to her, even as it rests in the palm of her hand.

She looks down at it, eyes narrowed contemplatively as she studies it closely.

She had found it in an alcove, set inside a hole that had been bored into the rock wall itself. It is cylindrical, as wide as her palm and perhaps 6 inches tall...and she has absolutely no idea what it is.

There is a power to it - emanating from it. _Old_ power, that feels so very unlike the other artifacts she has scavenged from similarly crumbling temples across the galaxy.

It is neither Jedi in origin, nor Sith. She knows the feel of _them_ exceedingly well at this point - has never had the nerve to admit to anyone that they feel oddly similar to one another; two sides of one coin.

But this...this is something else entirely.

She runs her finger over the top of it, thumb brushing away some of the encrusted dirt that has accumulated after untold years - stops, eyes narrowing. She lifts it closer to her face, using the tip of her index finger now to brush away more of the dirt.

There is a symbol, she can now see, etched into the top of it and Rey glances up at its twin emblazoned across the temple fascia. Twin forms, light and dark, twined together.

 _Balance…_

The word whispers through her mind, body and even - perhaps - the soul that connects the two; an echo that reverberates through synapse and sinew alike.

Her fingers tighten on it, suddenly _knowing_ that it should open. That there is _something_ inside of it. She turns it over in her hands, slowly; searches for a mechanism, a latch...but finds absolutely nothing.

The familiar sound of the Falcon's engines roars overhead and Rey glances up instinctively to see the ship - _her home_ \- soar past. Pulling a face, she glances down at the thing in her hand, frustrated. "I'll see to you later," she promises, then tucks it away.

Right now, she has a ride to catch.

* * *

He has known for months now that Hux plans to overthrow him.

It certainly wasn't a surprise either - the two of them have hated one another from nearly the first moment that they met. Hux finds him dangerous, undisciplined; an erratic, volatile liability that causes more problems than he solves.

If he is being entirely honest with himself, he cannot blame the General for feeling that way. Hux is the epitome of a military man - ordered, regimented; two things that Ren decidedly is _not_.

Hux is also - and most frustratingly - the most singular unimaginative man that he has ever met. His grandest visions are the stuff of purest cliche; his idea of ruling the Galaxy simply a rehashed version of the old Empire.

He wonders sometimes if Hux recalls just how spectacularly _that_ had failed…

His own vision for the galaxy is hazy, yet - though he does know that he would finally see the galaxy at peace, as it has not been for generations. He has no desire to see a new Empire built upon the rotting remains of the old, but neither would he see another Republic rise from the ashes either.

He recalls only too well from his youth the utter chaos and gross inefficiencies that had been the New Republic; the endless hassles and headaches and crises that had virtually consumed his mother's entire life for the better part of his childhood.

When neither Empire nor Republic had succeeded...what, then, was the alternative?

He still is not certain and it is infuriating, though he would not change what he had done, even if he could.

Killing Snoke had not been a _new_ concept to him. It had always been there, hidden away in the very deepest recesses of his mind, the idea that one day he would overthrow Snoke - but it was a fantasy that he had indulged in only rarely and never in any great detail. Self-preservation alone had kept the majority of his most treasonous imaginings at bay - he had tasted the lash of his Master's punishment often enough and for far less.

When he had finally done it, he wishes that he could say that it had been with a plan in mind. But the simple - and infinitely irritating - truth is that he hadn't. In the moment he decided what he would do, he hadn't been thinking about what might come _after_.

He couldn't, when she was staring up at him, so perfectly and unabashedly resolved. He could feel the strength in her - towering and titanic - and it kindled something in him. Lit a fire that he had believed long extinguished, if it had ever burnt at all and suddenly, he had known what he had to do.

What he finally _could_ do.

He may not have killed Snoke _for_ her, but he had most certainly done it _because_ of her.

Now, he is determined to figure out the rest on his own. After having lived far too long under the thumb of others, he has spent the past year trying very hard to learn how to make decisions for _himself_ without being beholden to anyone or anything.

It is, admittedly, a slow and painful process, but he likes to think that he is at least moving in the right direction.

Unfortunately, _his_ direction quite regularly runs in direct opposition to Hux's; a fact which only further fuels the malcontent that simmers beneath the other man's thin veneer of obedience.

He knows that it cannot - _will_ not - last, this stalemate between them. Eventually, there will come a time when he will have to deal with the issue head on, but for now, he will let the red menace carry on believing him a simpleton, unfit for command.

The General's hubris will be his downfall.

Of course, there is a fine line between allowing the bastard to underestimate him...and proving to him that he _should._

His connection with Rey continues to make the former far more difficult than the latter. He has lost count of the times when Hux has come upon him unexpectedly, only to see him seemingly speaking to thin air.

And then, of course, today…

As he stalks through the corridors of the Finalizer, everything about his encounter with Rey firmly _put away_ for the time being, he knows that his carelessness has given Hux far more ammunition than he had ever planned to. He can imagine what was said in his absence, the 'concerns' that Hux would inevitably have shared with his fellow Generals.

He sighs, annoyed.

The situation will require damage control...and he has never been terribly good at damage control.

As he rounds the last corner and activates the door to let himself back into the meeting room, he stops short at the emptiness that greets him.

They are gone. _All_ of them.

 _Gone_.

There had been decisions to be made, orders to be given. And in this empty room before him, he could see that they had been made and given in his absence.

By _Hux_.

All those Generals...the entirety of the First Order command...they would see him as unfit now. Incompetent.

 _Weak_.

It doesn't take long for his anger to rise up and swamp the anxiety that pours like ice-cold acid down the back of his throat and into his stomach.

He whips around, bolting from the room in a fog of fury. From somewhere far below, his better sense attempts to fight its way to the surface, clawing through the jagged remnants of his shattered self control. It calls to him to think; to consider. To not act imprudently.

 _Damage control_ , it cries, desperately.

But in his head, louder than reason, he hears their disdain - their _laughter_ \- and it deafens him to anything else. He reaches for his lightsaber, ignites it, fingers gripping the hilt so tightly that the leather of his gloves creaks in protest.

Hux is - as ever - on the bridge of the ship, arms folded behind his back as he barks out orders.

Supreme Leader Ren flings out his hand as he approaches, fingers crooked, and suddenly, the General is on his knees, gasping for breath and clawing at his neck. The bridge around them has gone silent, save for the hissing and spitting of his lightsaber.

 _So much for damage control..._

"Who," he demands, his voice nearly cracking from the force of his shout, "gave you permission to dismiss _my_ Generals?"

Hux stares up at him from his knees, hatred in his eyes even as he struggles to breath. "For...give...me...Sup...Supreme...Leader. I...I...merely...thought…"

"That was your first mistake," he snaps, yanking his hand to the side and sending Hux skidding along the floor to crash into the control console to his right. He moves forward silently, a predator approaching prey "They...you... _all_ of you...are _mine_ to dismiss. _Mine_ to summon."

He has released Hux's throat, but the other man still cowers away from him - away from the blade of the lightsaber now casting an eerie, red glow across skin that is paler than normal. "Supreme...Leader…"

He stops, towering over Hux's trembling form. He lowers the blade until it is nearly brushing the Generals cheek. "You would be wise," he growls, pretending Hux hadn't spoken, "to remember your _place_ , General Hux. I will not, I promise you, be as forgiving the next time you overstep your authority and encroach upon my own, is that understood?"

Hux nods his head jerkily, trying to answer without inadvertently coming into contact with the blade. "Yes...my lord. Forgive me."

It is, he recognizes, as close to an honest apology as he's going to get. He holds his position for another full minute, content to let the ginger bastard squirm for a little while longer. Then, in a whirl of red blade and black cloak, he spins away.

"I want a report detailing every decision that was made in my absence," he shouts as he moves away, "and I want it in my hand by no later than tomorrow morning, _General_."

He does not wait for a response, charging back through the doors of the bridge and out into the corridor beyond.

The confrontation with Hux has done absolutely nothing to assuage his fury, which still runs molten through his veins. Once, he would have simply vented his frustrations on the nearest convenient inanimate object, but now more than ever, he knows that he cannot. He is no longer merely Kylo Ren - he is the Supreme Leader of the First Order, and he cannot be constantly carving up his own ships.

But he still needs an outlet and so he turns his feet toward his personal training room, desperate for privacy in which to roar out his rage. He needs to do violence, to destroy something - and better a few easily replaced droids than a weapons control panel. If he passes anyone on his trek, he cannot see them, his focus entirely upon keeping himself in check for just a few minutes longer...

When the door finally closes behind him, shutting him away in one of the few places that truly belong to him, it is a relief all its own. He reaches up and tears at his cloak, letting it fall to the ground as he moves to activate one of his personally programed training routines. His gloves, tunic and boots follow, forming a trail of discarded armor in his wake.

Five minutes later, he has his lightsaber in hand once more - no practice swords today - as he faces down every single training droid in the room. They attack as one and he throws himself into the fray with a savage cry.

He uses it all as he spins and thrusts, hacks and stabs, his furious howls blending with the crackle and hum of his weapon in a symphony of destruction. His frustration, his humiliation, his fear - he focuses on them as he has been taught, channels the swirling miasma of his darkest emotions into the rage that has fueled him for the better part of a decade.

In his mind, he sees Hux - sneering at him, dismissing him, _laughing at him_ \- as he cuts the nearest droid cleanly in two.

Snoke comes next, the insidious, inescapable whisper that lives still in the back of his mind ( _you're just a child in a mask)_ , reminding him of the weakness - the conflict - that he has never managed to root out. This one is impaled before being crushed into scrap with a thought.

After that, Skywalker - the Living Legend. His _first_ master ( _his uncle_ …). So powerful. So knowledgeable. The embodiment of everything that Ben Solo had dreamt of one day becoming...but then had come the fear. The doubt. Hidden away at first, but growing more and more obvious every day, until finally, it had all come, quite literally, crashing down around their heads. This droid, he strikes down with a vicious, double-handed stroke.

Han Solo's face sends a lance of pain through him, but it is nothing compared to the memory of a much older pain. They were passionate, his parents - passionate lovers and even more passionate fighters. He can still hear the echoes of their arguments, can still feel the sinking, clawing _dread_ of knowing what would come next. A packed bag. A ruffle of his unruly hair. A door closing. Then...nothing. For months at a time. And when he did come back, it would be with a pat on the back and a smile that never quite reached his eyes for the son that was nothing like the one that he had wanted…

He strikes them all down, crushes them beneath blade and fist alike with an abandon that is freeing in its intensity. He runs out of faces before he runs out of droids, but that does not stop him. One after one, the droids fall until finally, with one last roar and a lethally graceful spin and thrust of his lightsaber, he runs the last remaining droid clean through.

But when he looks down at this one, expecting to see nothing but a mass of sparking wires and melted metal, he sees a form...a face...

And this one, is _hers…_

Her eyes widen and he can hear the gasp of shock as it passes her lips. Her body folds forward, collapses.

He sees the light in her eyes - that brilliant, captivating light - go dark. Cold.

 _Dead_.

He deactivates his lightsaber, chest heaving as he fights for breath that he cannot seem to find. His stomach rolls and he swallows against it, the image of her - so much clearer than the rest that he has painted, blurred by the tears that well up in his eyes.

She looks so real, lying there and he waits, desperately, for the image to fade back into the droid that he _knows_ it really is. But still, she lingers and the stillness of her - the emptiness where there should be so much _life_ \- is an agony beyond compare.

A horrifying thought occurs to him, when she _still_ does not fade away.

She had once tried to shoot him across the span of their bond, and failed. But it has grown so much stronger since then - they have touched. He knows the softness of her skin; has felt her warmth. What if…

Could it be...

Terror, raw and crippling, guts him. With a strangled sound of denial, he falls to his knees, saber dropping from his grip as he reaches out toward her. His fingers tremble as they brush against her hand to find it solid and still warm.

"No," he cries, voice cracking on the word. " _Rey_ …"

 _What has he_ _ **done**_ _?_

"Oh, yeah. You're gonna destroy her alright."

The voice comes from behind him and for a moment, it barely registers that someone has spoken. Then - _finally_ \- the image of her fades away, leaving nothing but the broken remains of a training droid in her place. He is frozen still; paralyzed by the possibility that had been laid out before him in such painstaking detail.

"I would apologize for that, because I know it was a low blow," the voice continues blithely, "but I think it was something we both needed to see."

He knows that voice. _Too_ well. Slowly, he turns his head...and there, leaning casually against the wall with his arms crossed, is the ghostly form of Luke Skywalker.

"Hey, kid," Luke acknowledges, smiling ever so slightly. "Told you I'd see you around."

* * *

 **If there's one thing I look forward to in Episode IX (beyond what _should_ be some delicious Reylo goodness), it's SassyForceGhostLuke!**

 **Ooh, also, if you're on tumblr, come say hi! You can find me under username all-about-the-balance. :)**


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: Ok, so...I am totally blown away by the response to this story so far! Thank you to every single person who has read, commented, followed and favorited this work. It means so much to me!**

 **Thank you, kylo-rey-kenobi for all your efforts. As always, my writing is better for it!**

* * *

" _Hey, kid," Luke acknowledges, smiling ever so slightly. "Told you I'd see you around."_

He knows that he should be angry - at the trick that has just been played upon him; at the entirely unwanted intrusion. More than that, he _wants_ to be angry. Anger is comfortable, useful...his oldest and truest ally. But now, when he needs it most, it seems to have abandoned him.

Caught still in the paralyzing horror of what he had, for a split second, believed that he had done, he cannot find even a flicker of fury to latch onto. He is left, instead, with nothing of any use whatsoever - grief, fear and an aching, desperate _longing_. The combination is potent and draining and leaves him feeling weak at the very moment he needs most to be strong.

He stares up at the shimmering shape of Luke Skywalker for several long, silent moments, heart thudding loudly in his chest. He wants to scream at him. He wants to take up his lightsaber and stab through the veil between worlds to end the old man all over again.

But he cannot find it in himself to do any of those things. Not with the image of Rey's too-still form seared into his brain…

"I don't want you here," he says at last, pretending he cannot hear the tremor in his voice. "Go away."

As orders go, it's far from the most convincing he has ever issued. A fact that is brought well and truly home by the snort that it earns him.

"Yeah. That's not gonna happen, I'm afraid." A beat. "I've been watching you for some time now, you know. I needed to be certain that I was right about you. I'm happy to see that I was."

It's odd to hear, but there is absolutely no malice in Skywalker's tone. No hate. No disgust. Not even any of the discomfort that had marked so many of their conversations toward the end. He sounds, for all the world, as if he is merely chatting with an old friend…

"Right about what?"

He hates that he asks, but he cannot stop himself. Skywalker and his games have set his world spinning off-kilter and he feels oddly adrift within his own skin. It is, he knows, precisely the point of his uncle's meddling, but even that isn't enough to break him free of its effects.

"That there's more than enough _you_ left to save. For a long time, I believed otherwise. Luckily for both of us, Rey knew better."

He isn't sure what irritates him more - that Skywalker knows enough to use her name as a weapon against him...or that it works so remarkably well...

 _She is beautiful, even in the cold, artificial light of the turbolift. He traces the lines of her back with his eyes, hungry for every line of her, clenched fingers yearning for the heat of her skin…_

' _You don't have to do this. I feel the conflict in you. It's tearing you apart."_

 _Her voice is soft, beguiling. Her face, when she turns toward him, is lit from within with so much Light that it steals the breath from his lungs. A shiver runs down his spine and he knows that, if he is not careful, he might just fall at her feet…_

He wrenches himself from the memory with a growl, resentment burning through the haze of emotion that had held him captive. He opens his eyes, shoots a glare at his ghostly enemy. "I want you gone. Immediately."

Luke huffs out a sigh, eyes rolling. "You're still stuck on that - move past it. I'm not going anywhere until I'm good and ready, so you might as well play along."

He growls again, spins away and stalks across the training room to retrieve his discarded clothing. If the old bastard won't leave, he'll just ignore him until he gives up. Because if history has taught him anything about Luke Skywalker, it's that he will, eventually, give up on him...

"I'd forgotten how stubborn you are," Luke comments from behind him, the words ringing with a fondness that had disappeared long before the night that Ben Solo had become Kylo Ren. "Never tell her I said this, but...you get that from your mother. Han was always much more flexible."

The words are like daggers, slicing anew at the oldest wounds he carries on his scarred soul. He refuses to let the hurt show though and keeps his back turned as he pulls on first his boots, and then his tunic. "Whatever your purpose here," he says flatly as he adjusts the black fabric into place, "you are wasting your time."

"Maybe I am," Skywalker says, amused, "but one of the advantages of being dead is that I've got a lot of it to spare. You'll be thrilled to know that I plan on spending quite a bit of it on you, Ben."

The resentment swells at that, flaring up into something he can truly use - the sound of _that name_ is the spur that brings his temper roaring back to life. He whips around with a snarl, pointing an accusing finger toward his uncle's silvery form. "Ben Solo is _dead_ ," he declares, viciously shoving away the memory of her voice caressing those oft-hated syllables. " _You_ saw to that, old man. Don't bother trying to reach out to him _now_."

Brow arching, Luke regards him with an infuriatingly knowing expression. "I know that's what you tell yourself. I also know that it's a lie. You wouldn't get so defensive over a simple _name_ if it weren't."

"You speak as if you know me," he hisses, glare turned positively murderous now, his hands clench and unclench at his sides, desperate to attack. "But you _don't_ know me, Skywalker. You never did. _None of you_ ever took the time to see anything but what you _wanted_ to see!"

For the first time, there is a spark of anger in those infuriatingly calm eyes, and Skywalker narrows them at him in disbelief. "What we _wanted_ to see? You think any of us _wanted_ you to become what you've become? A killer. A villain…"

"A monster?" He spits the word out, ignoring how it tastes like ashes in his mouth. "Yes, I have become a monster. That may not have been what any of you _wanted_ , but it is precisely what I saw in your eyes - _all_ of your eyes - every single time you looked at me. All of you _feared_ me, even when I had done nothing for you to be afraid of. You _feared_ me, when all I wanted was…"

He stopped, bites the words off, wishing them unspoken as soon they escape - he has revealed too much of himself; of the core of _hurt_ that has lived inside of him for as long as he can remember. He has spent years burying it beneath layer upon layer of fire and fury, but still it remains...the weakness at the very heart of him.

And he has just shown it to his enemy.

Skywalker watches him still, though a shadow has fallen over his face. The anger has been replaced now with something infinitely worse…

 _Pity_.

"Ben…I won't pretend we didn't make mistakes. We did. All of us - your mother, your father, _me_ \- we all failed you in one way or another. But you have to know that each of us only ever wanted what was best for you, even if we went about it in all the wrong ways."

Words. They were just words - they didn't actually mean anything. It had been too long; the injuries done had cut too deep. "You paint such a sympathetic picture," he says quietly, his anger _there_ , but of the quiet, simmering sort - so very different from his previously violent passions. "But you forget - it is _my_ life you're speaking of. _My_ past. I lived it. You can't re-write a history that I remember only too well."

There is frustration on Skywalker's face now; in the furrow of his brow and the pinch of his mouth. It is a small victory, but he will take it.

"Do you honestly believe that you weren't loved? That your mother…"

" _Love_ has nothing to do with it," he cuts in, old pain sitting like a rock in the middle of his chest. " _Love_ did not prevent my mother from spending the bulk of her time and energy on a galaxy that needed her far less than I did. _Love_ did not prevent my father from disappearing for months, only to return a little more distant each time. And _love_ did not prevent you from standing over me as I slept, contemplating whether to kill me or not." He cocks his head, regards the ghost before him with blistering enmity. "Did it?"

Skywalker stares at him for a long moment, and then, the frustration drains from his face, leaving him looking nothing but sad. His shoulders slouch ever so slightly and he shakes his head. "Ben...there was so much more to it than that."

"No, there wasn't," he says roughly, shaking his head, his voice breaking. "Not to me."

He sees when it happens, the moment those words truly strike home. Skywalker deflates before his eyes, shoulders dropping and expression going bleak. "Ben, I never...I'm so sorry…"

"Enough of this." He squares his shoulders, lifts his chin with as much pride as he can muster, biting back against the inconvenient burn of tears. He will show no more weakness. Not today. "I don't want your apologies, old man - they're far too late. And as for your pity, you can keep that as well. Despite what you may think, I am not that lost little boy anymore. I am the Supreme Leader of the First Order. This galaxy is _mine_. There is nothing to pity in _that_."

Skywalker shakes his head, sighs. "Oh, Ben...there's _everything_ to pity in that."

Refusing to rise to the old man's bait, he merely inclines his head - a gesture that even _he_ acknowledges that he inherited from his politically gifted mother. "Believe what you will. But know this, Skywalker...if your aim in coming to me is to turn me back to the Light, you will be disappointed. Now, if you will excuse me…" he reached out, his lightsaber flying across the room and landing in his waiting grasp, "...I have responsibilities to tend to."

He moves toward the door, head held high - hoping that he will never again have to endure another encounter like this one...

"Ben!"

He stops just at the door - why, he doesn't really know. But he stops all the same, though he neither turns around nor acknowledges Skywalker's call.

"I won't give up on bringing you back."

He sighs, just wanting this encounter to _end_. "I _told_ you…"

"...that you won't be turning back to the Light. Yeah - got it. But Ben…"

Suddenly, Skywalker is right beside him, a look of fierce, unflinching determination on his face. "...has it ever occured to you that you won't need to?"

And then the old man is gone, disappearing as suddenly as he had appeared, his last words hanging in the air.

He pulls back, frowning at the now empty space in front of him, confused.

A moment later though, he shakes his head, shoving the entire encounter forcefully behind him. He has a job to do; responsibilities to see to. He doesn't have time for the enigmatic philosophizing of a dead man.

Lifting his head high once more, he exits the room, leaving an empty room full of ruined training droids in his wake.

* * *

" _...as long as the light outweighs the darkness, life will prosper. Seek balance, Jedi. Only in this will you avert tragedy, and only in this will you truly succeed._ "

The flickering holographic image of Arca Jeth stares out at her for a moment longer, before disappearing back into its holocron. For a long moment, she stares down at the now silent cube, its final words of wisdom repeating on a loop in her head.

 _As long as the light outweighs the darkness...seek balance…_

She frowns, slumps forward in her seat, elbow on the table in front of her and fingers coming up to rub at her temples. "How is it balance," she mutters, "if the light outweighs the dark? That's...that's the _opposite_ of balance."

Frustrated, she reaches out and pokes a finger against the offending Jedi relic, shoving it away from her. "You, Master Jeth, have been absolutely _no_ help."

Nor, for that matter, have any other Masters - Jedi and Sith alike.

The Jedi speak of _balance_ , but she's begun to think that none of them ever actually looked up the word to see what it really meant. As far as they appear to have been concerned, bringing balance to the Force meant eliminating the Dark entirely.

While, on the other hand, the Sith never even made a pretense of seeking _balance_ , their entire purpose being to wipe out the _Light_ entirely.

In both cases, it is again the exact _opposite_ of real balance.

She sighs, pushing her chair back from the table and turning away from the piles of ancient - and so far _useless_ \- information heaped there. Her stomach is growling and she is, quite frankly, running out of patience, which makes it a perfect time for a break.

Pulling back the curtain that serves as her door, she doesn't bother closing it again behind her. The chamber she has taken as her own is on the outskirts of the cave system that the Resistance has turned into its temporary base. Everyone else has congregated further in, toward the larger, communal chambers - but she still prefers privacy.

Finn cannot understand it, but then, he has spent a lifetime in close quarters with others. It is natural to him.

To her, the idea of being so constantly surrounded by others is... _stifling_. Certainly, she enjoys coming together with everyone; treasures the camaraderie, the fellowship. But afterward, she craves space and quiet.

The lessons of a lifetime, she has found, are hard to unlearn.

If there is another reason why she has chosen to make her living quarters distant from everyone else, she will certainly never admit it. Though it is far easier to entertain an...unexpected visitor...when there is little fear of anyone finding out about it.

Right now though, there's little fear of anyone finding out about anything - the base is nearly empty of its usual swarm of inhabitants. A skeleton crew remains, of course, to oversee the essentials. The rest are participating in a survival training exercise out in the wilds of the Rym Mountains.

She has been exempted from it, everyone agreeing that she has more than enough experience in that area already.

Though she misses the companionship of Finn, Rose, Poe and the others, she finds that she is glad of the time it has given her to focus on research. She may be no closer to understanding the artifact she discovered on Alvorine, but she has learned a great deal on other subjects in the process.

Foremost of which, she had come across an extensive lesson on lightsaber construction and kyber crystals, which she had marked and planed to revisit very soon. Her close call on Alvorine had only reinforced her desire to build a new weapon for herself. She loves her staff, but it is, quite simply, unequal to the demands of this new life she has made for herself.

She has several ideas for blade design, but she knows further research will be required before she even attempts the construction of any of them.

After securing herself a ration pack and a cup of caf from the mess, she settles in at one of the tables and begins to eat, her mind consumed with how much she still needs to learn.

It is frustrating, sometimes, not having anyone to talk to about all of this - or at least, someone that she can trust without worrying if she's being foolish. She has so many questions, and most of the answers have, so far, proven elusive. So much so that she is actually contemplating taking the risk and making a trip to the Galactic Archives on Atzerri.

Of course, she will need to get approval from Resistance Command before undertaking the trip. Something which may prove difficult. She's had more and more trouble convincing them to approve her excursions of late.

She tries not to let that bother her, but she can admit to herself that it chafes. She isn't used to taking orders, and, honestly, she's not sure if she particularly likes it.

But the Resistance has her loyalty, so she will continue to do things according to their rules.

She only hopes she is able to make them see why expanding her knowledge of the Force can only help _them_ in the long run…

"For someone who's usually all smiles, you're looking very serious today, Rey."

She jumps at that, having been deep into her own thoughts. Looking up, she finds Leia Organa standing before her, a fresh cup of caf in her hands, and offers a small smile. "General Organa."

That earns her a cocked-brow and a scolding look. "Now what have I told you about that?"

She lowers her head, smile stretching wider. "Sorry. _Leia_."

"Better," the older woman acknowledges with a nod. She settles herself down in the seat across the table with her customary grace. "Now, back to what I said before. What put that serious expression on your face? Is something wrong?"

"Not _wrong_ , exactly," she says with a small shake of her head. "You remember the artifact I found on Alvorine?"

Leia nods. "No luck figuring out what it is yet?"

"None whatsoever." She leans forward on the table, food forgotten. "I've looked through everything I've found so far and I can't find any reference to anything even _remotely_ like it. And since I don't know what it _is_ , it makes it impossible to find out what it's _for."_

The smile Leia gives her then is kind, knowing. "It's hard to find answers when you're not entirely sure what the question is supposed to be, isn't it?"

" _Yes_ ," she agrees in a rush, beyond thankful that someone, at least, seems to understand. "I know that something about that box is important - but I can't figure out _what_!"

"And it's not just that, is it? It's everything else as well." Leia stops, looks down into her cup of caf, elegant fingers wrapping around the cup. "I remember when Luke was in the same position that you are - a galaxies worth of questions, and no one left to answer them." She looks up again, her smile still there, but sad now. "He was just as frustrated as you are now."

"But he found the answers eventually…"

Leia shrugs one shoulder. "Some of them. Others he just had to accept were lost to time and too many years of war."

Deciding that there is no time like the present to begin laying groundwork, Rey leans back, attempting to strike a casual pose. If she can win the General over to her way of thinking, she knows she has every likelihood of getting her plans approved. "True. But there _is_ more information out there that I haven't been able to search through yet. I was thinking that maybe there might be something of use in the Galactic Archives."

Leia is quiet for a moment, studying Rey closely. "You're right," she says at length, "there very well could be. But the Archives are on Atzerri and Atzerri is currently under First Order control."

"I could manage it," Rey rushes to assure her. "If I went on my own…I know that I could..."

"Out of the question," Leia interrupts, shaking her head emphatically. "You're too valuable, Rey. I can't let you go waltzing off into enemy territory to look for something that may not even be there in the first place."

She tries not to get angry; tries very hard to push down the resentment that knots at the back of her throat, but she can't quite hold it all back. "But this is _important_ ," she insists. "It's important to _me_."

"And you are important to _us_ ," Leia declares, leaning forward and placing a hand on top of Rey's where it rests on the table. "I'm sorry, Rey, but that's one project of yours that Command is never going to be able to approve. Maybe one day it'll be possible. But not now."

 _Project_. The word stabs at her, though she knows that Leia doesn't mean it to sound as dismissive as it does and she tries very hard to really understand that this is _the General_ talking, not just _Leia._ It's a battle though; reason warring with emotion. She wants to argue - wants to explain how much she wants to know more. How much she _needs_ to know more.

But she just...can't. And it is fear that stops the words on the tip of her tongue.

Fear that she will say the wrong thing; that she will overstep, push too hard. Fear that she could lose her place here, amongst the first family that she has ever known.

Fear that they will leave her behind, too.

So she bites the arguments back; shoves her frustration and her need down, down, deep inside. She takes a deep breath, turns her hand over beneath Leia's and gives it a reassuring squeeze.

"Of course," she says with a nod, lips curving into a smile. "You're right - it's not the right time."

Leia brings her other hand across, pressing it on top of their already joined hands, her smile soft, eyes full of compassion; the General has retreated again. "I know it's hard, Rey - sacrifice always is. But you have to have faith. _Believe_ that you'll find the answers, and I promise you that someday, you will."

Faith. Belief. _Hope_.

She knows them all. Intimately.

"I can do that," she says, smile widening until her cheeks ache with it.

Leia's smile brightens and she gives Rey's hands one last squeeze. "Good girl. Now," she pulls her hands back, nods to the plate of food still waiting to be eaten, "finish your lunch. I've got to get back to work." She stood, taking her caf with her and started toward the corridor that led to the command center.

"It's good to have you home, Rey," she calls over her shoulder. "We all miss you when you're gone."

There is so much warmth in her voice, so much simple honesty. It catches Rey as off guard as it always does, such easy _acceptance_ still a shockingly foreign concept to her. Even after all this time, the effect it has on her is immediate and powerful - a balm that never fails to soothe.

"Thank you. I'm...glad to be home," Rey calls after her, watching until Leia has disappeared into the corridor beyond. Once she knows she is beyond earshot, she lowers her head, guilt now coloring her frustration. "It's good to have a home."

It is the one thing she has always wanted more than anything else - and now, she has it. A home. A place for herself. People who care.

A family.

And yet...she can't help but yearn for _more_ …

 _The press of a warm hand at the small of her back, towering strength at her side...a feeling of such perfect harmony singing in her veins...a vision that can never be…_

 _Or can it?_

"No." She snaps the word sharply, slamming her palm down hard on the table, rattling the plate and sloshing caf over the side of her cup. She refuses to follow that train of thought. _Refuses_. "This is what I want. This is _all_ that I want."

The words haunt her though as she forces herself to eat the food that she no longer wants. Those same words follow her all the way back to her rooms and linger still as she greets her friends upon their return that evening. They are still flitting through her mind even as she smiles and laughs and hugs her way around them all.

When she goes to bed that night, they are the last conscious thought she has before sleep claims her.

 _Or can it?_

* * *

 **A/N: Next chapter should be up sometime next week. Thanks again for reading! Come visit my on tumblr at all-about-the-balance. It's pretty much all Reylo, all the time over there for me!  
**


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: Another chapter down, however many more to go! Thank you, as ever, to those who have taken the time to read, review, follow and favorite this story. And thank you to my beta, kylo-rey-kenobi!**

* * *

He has always known that Hux despises him every bit as much as he despises Hux. What he hadn't fully understood was just how intensely stupid Hux believes him to be.

Sitting once more at the head of a very long table lined with Generals - the latest in a long line of increasingly frustrating meetings detailing just how quickly the Resistance is strengthening - he flicks through the latest intel reports on his datapad, glower deepening just a little bit more with every side notation that Hux has added 'for the Supreme Leader's benefit'. Apparently, Hux not only believes him utterly ignorant of Galactic history, but of his own family history as well.

The latest reports, received just the day before, are that an alliance has been struck between the Resistance and the planet of Naboo. Hux and the rest of High Command have been in something of a panic ever since, thus the urgency of this meeting. He scans quickly through the paragraph detailing the ' _direct connections that exist between Leia Organa and the planet of Naboo'_ and fights the urge to throw the datapad at Hux's head.

The fact that he was born Ben Solo, son of notorious rebels Leia Organa and Han Solo, is not _officially_ known. It is, in fact, the worst kept secret in the First Order, thanks in no small part to the former Supreme Leader's habit of rattling on about the blood-heir of Darth Vader and his impeccable pedigree - often in front of Hux, no less.

Hux, who had put the pieces together all too quickly. Hux, who had been programmed to play the game of First Order politics since birth and thus, understood the power of information only too well. Hux, who had known just which ears to whisper in to disseminate the information as quickly and quietly as possible. The subsequent doubts about where his true loyalties lay had followed him like an ever present shadow at first and he had, perhaps, gone a little _too_ out of his way to prove them wrong - to make them all forget that he had ever been anyone but Kylo Ren.

He wonders if this little display is Hux's not-so-subtle reminder that his past is not nearly as secret as it had been meant to be. If so - if it is, in fact, some convoluted power play in which Hux intends to use the truth of his lineage against him - then he is about to throw a very large wrench into the General's surprisingly clumsy plans.

Taking a moment to gather himself, he ignores the anxiety that claws at his insides - the fear that this plan of his will fail spectacularly and leave him looking like the galaxy's greatest fool. It is, he tells himself firmly one last time, a _good_ plan. More than that, it is the _right_ plan. Of this, he has never been more certain.

He has known for a very long time that the First Order needs to change its tactics, if it has any hope of succeeding. Now, he has finally figured out how to make a start of it.

"General Hux."

He speaks the red menace's name sharply - a whiplash that cuts through Hux's rambling with ease. The room goes quiet, Hux slowly turning to look at him, clearly attempting to put on a good show of loyalty. They know one another too well for that though, and he can see the way Hux struggles not to let his disdain show.

"Supreme Leader?"

He has the full attention of the room now, and much as he hates it - uncomfortable as it makes him - he holds his head high, keeping his expression cool and utterly controlled. He sets the datapad down on the table before leaning back in his seat, arms crossing over his chest. "While I agree that the situation on Naboo needs to be dealt with, I would prefer to attempt a diplomatic intervention before simply bombing the government into submission."

The silence that follows is almost - _almost_ \- humorous; he doubts he could have shocked them more if he'd tried.

 _Good_ , he thinks. _Let them begin to understand. Let them begin to see…_

It had occurred to him, as he sat, reading about how the Resistance has begun to reach out to the government of Naboo for aide and assistance. Despite the years that separated them, he _knew_ his mother. Leia Organa was brilliant and, in her own way, utterly ruthless in her pursuit of her goals. She would not hesitate to use her mother's legend to her advantage...in which case, why should he not do the same?

"A... _diplomatic_ intervention, my lord?"

He turned his head, focusing on the speaker. "Yes, General Haspyn - a diplomatic intervention. I have no desire to lend support to the rebel cause, which is precisely what an unprovoked attack on Naboo would do."

"Unprovoked?" Hux lurches forward a few steps, his hands balling into fists at his sides. "Supreme Leader, we have incontrovertible evidence that the Naboo government is actively aiding the Resistance. That alone is provocation enough…"

"And what alternatives have they been presented with?" He leans forward, gloved hands coming to rest on the table before him, deciding that the time for concealment has passed. "Allow me to make myself very clear - I have no desire to repeat the mistakes of the past. The Empire, for all its power, made a grave miscalculation in equating fear with loyalty. It was that error that allowed for the birth and ultimate success of the rebellion, and it is one that I do not plan to repeat."

It is the first time that he has ever spoken thus, and he can see the effect immediately. Some of the faces along the table are thoughtful, some taken aback and others still visibly affronted. He takes careful note of each and every name and reaction, filing it away for future reference. If he is to change the character of the Beast, he must be intimately acquainted with the sharpness of each and every tooth and claw.

Unsurprisingly, it is Hux whose reaction is the least controlled.

"With all due respect, _Supreme Leader_ ," the disdain is no longer hidden, but instead on display for all to see and hear, "we are the First Order. We are in the business of war, not _diplomacy_."

He only just manages not to roll his eyes. "War might win us the Galaxy, General Hux, but it is diplomacy that will see that we keep it." A memory springs up, old and dusty but still surprisingly clear. "The war of words is what will ultimately decide the fate of the Galaxy," he says, quiet but determined, "and that is not a battle that can be won with weapons."

There is something terribly upside down about using Leia Organa's words in this room, to these men, but he ignores the tiny stab of guilt easily. He wants the same thing for the Galaxy that she always did - a real, lasting peace - even if he is taking a far different route to achieve it than she did.

"Who, precisely, do you recommend we send to Naboo for this _diplomatic intervention_? You forget, Supreme Leader, that Organa has a particular claim to their loyalty that none of our Command can hope to supercede. Queen Amidala is hailed, to this day, as an icon of their people and she was..."

"My grandmother," he cuts in, ignoring the shock that permeates the room. He is, he has decided, tired of running from his past. Tilting his head to the side and regarding Hux coolly. "Which is why I will go to Naboo myself. If Leia Organa has no qualm in calling upon her bloodline to forge this alliance, I will not hesitate to do the same."

Hux is so angry that he's practically vibrating with it. "And if this... _effort_...fails?"

He shrugs, turning back to look up and down the line of faces turned toward him. "Then they will be dealt with accordingly. Either way, we will deal yet another blow to the Resistance and make our position clear to the rest of the Galaxy. The First Order will rule - with strength, always, but with fairness where at all possible."

Standing then, he crosses his arms behind his back, chin lifting. "Now, return to your posts. There are preparations to be made." The room began to clear; those attending via holo disappearing, while those physically present began to file out, talking lowly amongst themselves.

He watches them go in silence, noting in his peripheral vision that Hux has not moved. After a moment, he turns his head and can practically see the steam pouring out of Hux's ears. Immediately, his pleasure at advancing his agenda magnifies exponentially. "Is there something I can do for you, General Hux?"

Hux says nothing until the room has cleared, then he stalks over to the door, sealing it shut with a sharp stab of his finger. He whirls back around, pale skin flushed with fury. "What do you think you are doing?"

Jaw clenching, he tightens his hands into fists behind his back. The temper that he has kept in remarkable check for the past hour flares up at the blatant challenge. "Careful, _Armitage_ ," he warns. "You sound dangerously close to forgetting your _place_."

Moving forward, Hux plants both hands on the table, leaning forward. "My _place_ ," he spits, "is High Commander of the First Order. As such, it is for _me_ to decide…"

"Your decision-making powers," he cuts in viciously, "extend only so far as _I_ see fit, Hux. Or have you forgotten that I am the Supreme Leader?"

"As if I could," Hux grinds out. "I wonder though - have _you_ forgotten? Supreme Leader Snoke would have ordered Naboo turned to dust without a second thought."

"And what did he accomplish?" He hisses out the words, finally able to say what he really thought of Snoke. "In all the years that he sat upon that ridiculous throne of his, what real progress did he make in retaking the Galaxy? It was because of _him_ that the Resistance was born in the first place."

"How _dare_ you?" Hux straightens again, glaring. "How dare you stand there, in his place, and insult his legacy?"

His hand shoots out before he can stop himself, fingers clenching and immediately Hux's face goes white with strain. "His legacy will be forgotten." He is shouting now, tenuous hold on his temper finally giving way. "The First Order will be remade in _my_ image, not _his_. I will see the Galaxy wiped clean of even the memory of him."

He releases his hold and Hux drops to the floor, gasping for breath. Walking around the table, he moves to stand beside the hunched form of his greatest irritant, staring down at him with wicked intent. "And if you continue to stand against me, I will take the greatest pleasure in doing the same to you. Is that clear?"

"Yes," Hux croaks, looking up at him, equal parts fear and hatred in his gaze. "Supreme Leader."

He turns away, fingers itching to finish the job that they had begun. "Get out," he orders, walking over to stare out of the viewport behind his seat. Once Hux has left the room, he flicks his fingers, closing the door behind the man.

Once it is shut and he is alone, he breathes out a sigh, bringing one hand up to pinch at the bridge of his nose. It is a chore, this business of leading - one that he is still not sure he likes, though he is determined to see it done. Better _him_ , than Hux, at the very least. He wonders, fleetingly, if the Resistance knows just how lucky they are that it is _he_ who has taken the reigns of the First Order.

Hux, he knows, would have happily reduced the entire Galaxy to ash and scrap just to root them out. Hate him though they may - and ridiculous though it sounds, even to him - he is by far, the lesser of their two particular evils.

He laughs then, reaching out to brace one hand against the viewport as his shoulders slump.

The past weeks have been...trying. And he is _tired_.

It pains him to admit it, but ever since his visit from Skywalker, his mind has been in constant turmoil. Too much had been dragged to the surface, too many memories stirred and now, he too often feels as if he is drowning in them. During the day, he is busy enough to keep most of them at bay. But at night…alone and quiet in his chambers…

That is when they come for him - the memories, the thoughts.

Of his mother, his father...of _her_. Of the path he has chosen. Of the decisions he has made.

Of Skywalker's final, awful question.

 _Has it ever occured to you that you won't have to?_

He leans forward, pressing his forehead to the the cool transparisteel, fighting to banish the ever encroaching weight of his thoughts. "This is my path," he whispers, almost desperately. "This is what I choose. This is what I _am_." He pauses, an image of _her_ stealing into his head, her face streaked with tears as she shakes her head at him. "This is all I _can_ be."

It happens then. For the first time in nearly three weeks, he can feel the pull of the bond and the world around him contracts and widens at the same time. He presses back from the window with a low gasp, hating the eagerness - the _yearning_ \- that fills him, but powerless against it.

Spinning around, his eyes find her immediately. She is sitting cross-legged on the floor, head lowered and eyes focused intently on something in her hands. Her hair is tied back into a loose knot, loose tendrils falling softly around her face...and he has never seen anything more beautiful than she is in that very moment.

 _Rey…_

He takes a step toward her, focusing in the way he has found works best to solidify the connection between them, and suddenly, her surroundings come into sharp focus and he lets out a bark of miserable laughter.

She - and therefore _he_ \- is in the lounge, aboard the Millenium Falcon.

"You know," he says to her - to the universe at large, "I really do hate this ship."

* * *

She understands now why the construction of a lightsaber was considered the crowning achievement for a Jedi Padawan.

Sitting on the floor in the lounge of the Falcon - having given strict orders to her friends that she not be disturbed - she is surrounded by a carefully cultivated collection of parts. One that she has spent the better part of a year hunting down.

She has tried to scavenge as much as she can from Master Luke's broken saber, but only the pommel cap and power insulator were really left in any kind of working order. They sit beside her, along with two diatium power cells, a handful of focusing lenses and energizers, several different activator mechanisms and adjustment knobs, as well as a blade emitter and emitter matrix.

Then, of course, there is the small box that sits in pride of place in the very center of all the rest of the supplies. Leia had presented it to her just the night before, a wide, proud smile on her face.

' _I found it in with the rest of Luke's things that you brought back from Ahch-To,' she said, only the faintest trace of sadness in her voice._

 _Rey opened the box, gasping aloud at the sight that meets her eyes. She reached in, drawing out one of the three deep, icy blue crystals resting inside. 'Are these…'_

' _Kyber crystals,' Leia confirmed. 'I'm sorry I didn't find them sooner. You could have gotten started on your new lightsaber months ago…'_

Rey glances up from where she is fiddling with the wiring of the power insulator, attempting to rework one of the loose connections, eyes settling on the carved, wooden box. Three perfectly matched, natural crystals. She had never anticipated being able to find any at all, let alone a matching set.

As soon as she had sufficiently thanked Leia for the gift, she had run straight back to her chambers and spent the rest of the evening doing as much research as she could on the crystals. She was fairly certain they were Permafrost crystals, mined from the ice planet of Hoth, but without anyone to ask, she couldn't be certain.

Ultimately, it didn't matter though. Whatever sort of crystals they were, they were _hers_.

She'd barely been able to sleep the night before, so eager was she to begin working on the construction of her new lightsaber.

Now, she is just trying not to get overwhelmed by how much work it is going to require. Particularly when she has only a rudimentary knowledge of what must be done.

It would be so much easier, she thinks as she lowers her eyes back to her work, if she could just bring herself to ask…

"No," she says, quashing that traitorous little voice. "That's not happening, so stop thinking it."

She tells herself it is getting easier to believe that. She also tells herself that she hasn't missed him over the past weeks.

Someday, she hopes she might actually start to believe the things she tells herself.

"You know, I really do hate this ship."

Her head snaps up and she nearly drops the power insulator, so focused inward that she had missed the telltale signs of the bond initiating.

He is facing her, but he is not looking at her - his eyes too busy surveying her surroundings, his expression hovering somewhere between amused and pained. She watches him in silence for a moment, taking in every detail - drinking him in, though she will never admit as much in words.

He is on the Finalizer - that much is immediately obvious. The room around him is not one that she recognizes, but she knows First Order sterility when she sees it. She squints and the detail comes into sharper focus - a long table, chairs...a meeting room of some sort?

There is an impressively large viewport behind him and she takes a moment to admire the starscape before shifting her eyes back to him. The first thought that occurs to her is that he looks _tired_.

His clothing is slightly rumpled, his face pale beneath the livid line of his - _her_ \- scar. His hair hangs longer than the last time she had seen him and it falls in his eyes even more stubbornly than it did then. Her fingers, now holding the power insulator in a white-knuckled grip, almost twitch with the desire to sweep it back and away from his face.

She presses her lips together, annoyed with herself for the concern that bubbles up inside of her, and drops her eyes back to her work. "Good," she says at last, the word sharp and staccato. "Because I quite like it. I'd hate to have to fight you for it."

He is facing away from her now, gloved hands hanging loosely at his sides. At her words, he turns just enough to give her a wry grin that pulls at the corner of his mouth, his dark eyes brightening. "You have nothing to worry about there - you're more than welcome to this hunk of scrap."

She bristles at that, feeling a surge of protectiveness for the ship that has become more of a home to her than any that she has ever known. "It's hardly that," she snaps back, glaring at him now with open hostility. "Hate it all you want, but you can at least be fair about it."

He turns more fully toward her then, one brow arching. "It's an antique, Rey."

Lips pursing doggedly, she lifts her chin. "It's not. It's just...a bit outdated."

Huffing out a disbelieving laugh, he moves to the room's environmental controls, reaching out to lift a hastily repaired splice of wires from where it dangles beneath the control panel. Tilting his head, he meets her eyes with a deliberately bland look. "It's a relic," he insists, dropping the wires and straightening again. "And a wreck of one, at that."

She grits her teeth, turns her eyes back down to her work. "If this is all you've come for, you can go away immediately. I'm quite busy at the moment."

"I didn't come for anything," he corrects, and from the corner of her eye, she watches as he drops down into the chair nearest to him, slouching down into it with none of his usual grace. "Not this time." He tips his head back against the headrest, closing his eyes. "I don't suppose it was your doing?"

"Afraid not," she says, frowning. Face on, she can see that tired doesn't even begin to cover it - he looks utterly _exhausted_. "I don't suppose you've managed to work out what triggers the connection when we don't?"

His lips curl up into a ghost of a grin, though he does not open his eyes. "Afraid not," he parrots back to her, lifting a hand to pinch at the bridge of his nose, black gloves a stark contrast to the pallor of his skin.

"You look terrible."

The words are out before she can stop them and they earn her a huff of laughter that sounds far more brittle than amused. "There's that refreshing honesty I admire so much." He drops his hand, lifts his head, dark eyes meeting hers squarely. "You, on the other hand, look lovely."

She freezes, eyes going wide and lips parting in surprise. The burn of a flush sweeps over her cheeks and she lowers her eyes once more, flustered at such a bold-faced compliment. "I...I'm not sure what to say to that."

"You don't need to say anything," he says, shrugging - there is a negligence to him that she has never seen before; the fierceness of his presence dimmed to a pale shadow of its usual intensity. She isn't entirely sure that she likes it. "Just take it as the compliment that it is and leave it at that."

There is something wrong. Something... _off_. She is hardly an expert, but she knows him well enough to see that something has happened in the time since their bond last went dark. Shaking off her discomfiture, she leans forward, searching eyes back on his face and tracing the bruise-dark skin beneath his eyes.

"What's the matter?"

It's his turn to look away now - he drops his gaze, gives a small nod of his head toward where her forearms rest on her legs. "How's your leg?"

It takes her a moment - Alvorine feels like a lifetime ago, rather than just a few weeks - but then she remembers and brings her hand up to rub lightly at the scar hidden beneath her trousers. "Healed," she says simply, then goes back to tinkering with the power insulator in her hands.

If he doesn't want to answer her questions, she decides she'll just ignore him until he goes away. She certainly isn't going to push for answers he doesn't want to give.

Even if her insides are currently twisting themselves into the most irritating knots at the thought that there is something wrong with him.

In the silence that follows, she finally manages to connect the last of the loose wire couplings and sets the power insulator aside. Scanning the other parts that lay before her, she scoops up the emitter matrix and turns her attention to it instead.

"What are you working on?"

The question is soft - disarmingly honest. It is the way she likes him least, because it is the hardest to ignore. He doesn't sound like Kylo Ren; in this moment - and those like it - he is entirely Ben Solo.

And Ben Solo is far more dangerous to her peace of mind than his darker, crueler counterpart.

"Not much, at the moment," she says finally, aiming for sharp and discouraging and annoyed when the words come out just as soft and honest as his own. "Just checking power couplings"

She hears his chair creak, glances up from beneath her lashes to see that he is leaning forward in his chair now, elbows braced on his knees and eyes on the array of parts splayed out around her. His eyebrows go up in surprise and she knows immediately that he has realized exactly what she's doing.

"You're building a lightsaber."

It isn't a question, so she doesn't treat it as such.

"Attempting," she corrects. "I'm _attempting_ to build a lightsaber. Whether I can actually manage it or not is another thing entirely."

He waves the words away dismissively. "The mechanics of it are fairly simple - especially for someone with your experience. If I could manage it, so can you."

It is said simply - straightforward and so breathtakingly _certain_ , without even a trace of false flattery. His faith in her ability strikes her square in the heart, sending shockwaves of tingling warmth through her entire body.

Fighting against it, she hunches further over, trying harder than she ever has before to harden herself to him.

If he is offended by her silence, he doesn't show it. Instead, she hears him rise and walk toward her; feels the warmth of him as he kneels down beside her. He reaches out, a long-fingered, black gloved hand moving into her peripheral vision as it brushes the lightest of touches across the carved box that holds the crystals.

"I remember this," he says quietly, and it is there, in his voice - the same weariness she has read in his face. "Lu…" he stops just before the name rolls off his tongue and she flicks her eyes up in time to see him swallow them down, the muscles around his eyes and jaw tightening against them. "Skywalker's Permafrost crystals. He spent years gathering these, went on and on about how rare and powerful they were. He had intended to build a new lightsaber with them." He pulls his hand away. "Clearly he never did."

"I can't imagine why," she snips meanly, hating herself for feeling guilty for it.

He merely hums, the sound something like agreement. Leaning further forward, he scoops up the pile of focusing lenses, eyes narrowing as he studies them. "This one is warped," he offers, taking one of them from his open palm and tossing it unceremoniously to the side. "If you're going to build a saberstaff, you're going to want convex lenses, not concave." He lifts another one up, holds it out to her between his finger and thumb. "This one should work well."

Utterly thrown now, she sets down the emitter matrix and reaches out toward him, plucking the lens from his fingers as swiftly as she can, doing her best to keep the contact between them at an absolute minimum. "A saberstaff," she repeats, setting the lens in the center of her palm, running her thumb over the smooth curve of it. "I've read about them, but I hadn't…" she stops, frowns - considering. "You think I should build a saberstaff?"

"You don't?" He drops another lens into her open palm and it lands next to the other one with a small _clink_. "I would have thought it was the obvious choice for you." He looks up, hair falling in his eyes. "That's just my opinion, though." He smiles then, and it is small but real. "Far be it from me to tell a Jedi what to do with her lightsaber."

It all comes crashing down in that moment - her anger at him, her determination to shut him out. With that smile - the first true one that she has ever seen on him - her resolve shatters. She lets the lenses fall into her lap, and finally gives in to the urge she has been fighting from the moment he looked up.

Reaching out toward him, she skims her fingers across his forehead, gently brushing that unruly shock of black hair off of his face and tucking it behind his ear, revealing the entirety of his fine-boned countenance. He is frozen beneath her touch, his dark eyes gone wide and generous lips falling slack.

For a long... _long_...moment, they simply stare at one another - neither moving except to breathe, their chests rising and falling in perfect tandem as the world around them falls away.

Finally - and with a positively colossal effort - she pulls away, dropping her hand away from his face. "You need a haircut," she says around the lump that has formed in her throat, somehow feeling both unsettled and invigorated at the same time. "Or a hair clip. It's hard to have a conversation when I can't see you."

"But you _can_ see me." The words are spoken in a hushed, almost _awed_ tone that cuts straight through to her heart.

She lowers her eyes, willing away the bite of tears. "Ben…"

And then it is _his_ hand on _her_ face, his glove having been discarded when she wasn't looking. He sweeps the pads of his fingers down the curve of her cheek, sliding them beneath her chin and tipping her face gently up toward his once again. His eyes meet hers, burning once more with all the dark intensity that is _him_ , his weariness gone as if it had never been there. "Just as I can see _you_."

His thumb - warm and far softer than it has any right to be - strokes along the line of her jaw, feather-light, leaving a trail of gooseflesh in its wake.

And then, as suddenly as it had contracted, the world expands again and he is gone, their connection broken once more.

Still feeling the phantom of his touch on her skin, Rey presses a trembling hand to her face and shuts her eyes tight.

When the tears come this time, she doesn't even try to stop them.

* * *

 **A/N: So I'm hoping to have another chapter up sometime next week (maaaaaaaybe sooner? Please do NOT quote me on that, depends on kids and schedules and such). For right now, I hope you enjoyed and I hope you continue to enjoy!**


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N: Ok, so...this one took a little bit longer than intended. Real life and a short-lived case of writers block got in the way. But, here is chapter 6!**

 **Thanks to my beta, kylo-rey-kenobi, for all your invaluable help and editing skills!**

* * *

She is not, technically, part of Resistance Command, but that hasn't seemed to make a difference to those that are - her presence has been requested at every Command meeting for the past several weeks. Until today, she has politely declined.

Mostly because of the unpredictable nature of her connection with the Supreme Leader. She refuses to be responsible for giving either their position or their plans away, no matter how inadvertent the betrayal would be.

Then too, there is the fact that she isn't entirely certain it's a role that she even _wants_.

Fighting for the cause is one thing...but _leading_? _Commanding_? She's not terribly interested in doing either, to be honest. That sort of thing is better handled by those with both the inclination and the experience to do so. She is perfectly happy staying firmly in the background and lending what skills she does have when they are needed.

Apparently, she is the only one who feels that way about herself. Everyone else seems to be under the impression that she has valuable insight and strategic ability to lend to their efforts.

It would be funny...if she didn't find it so very, very uncomfortable.

She is feeling just that, as she stands between Finn and Poe at the very front of the Command Center, flanking Leia, who is waiting for the last of their numbers to file into the room. For lack of anything else to occupy her, she observes each face, cataloging old ones and new ones as she comes across them. It feels good to see just how many she _doesn't_ immediately recognize - their numbers increasing, day by day. There are still far too few of them, but the slow trickle of the beginning has turned into a steady flow.

Hopefully, soon, they'll have enough manpower and talent behind them to once again pose a significant threat to the First Order.

It is a thought that fills her with anticipation and dread in equal measures. She wants to fight - knows it is unquestionably the _right_ thing to do...but she doesn't want to fight _him_.

Not again.

 _Never_ again.

And if things continue on as they are, she knows that she might very well have to.

The thought makes her chest hurt and her hands clench, blunt nails pricking at the skin of her palms. Could she do it? Could she meet him on the field of battle and fight him, after everything?

She wishes she could say _yes_...

Finn leans toward her, one hand coming up to lay across her back. "Hey...you ok?"

She glances over at him, reads the concern on his face, and forces a smile. "Yeah, of course," she says, peeling her fingers open and internally cursing herself for allowing her feelings to project so plainly in her body language. "Just ready for this to be over."

"You and me both," Finn says, grinning now. "Too much like work, for my tastes."

He's one of the hardest working, most diligent members of the Command staff, having taken to the leadership role with all the enthusiasm and confidence that she, herself, lacked. But he is still Finn, and she finds herself grinning at him right back. "Careful...they hear you say things like that, they'll think they're not giving you enough to do."

"Don't tell him that" Poe cuts in from Rey's other side. "He was bugging me yesterday for more responsibility. I asked Leia if we had anything else to give him and she laughed and suggested we give him _my_ job."

"Oh now, I like the sound of that." Finn lifts his head high, nose in the air. " _Commander_ Finn. It's got a ring to it, I'm not gonna lie."

Poe leans across Rey, eyes narrowed and pointing a finger at the other man in mock-warning. "I swear to god, mop-boy, you try it and I'll assign your ass to the outpost on Hoth faster than you can blink."

Finn points right back, jabbing at Poe's hand. "Bring it _on_ , flyboy."

Rey leans back away from their hands, looking around Finn's back to where Rose is standing on his other side. "Rose...make them stop. They're being ridiculous again."

"They're _men_ ," Rose says with a shrug, as if that's all the explanation needed - though she, too, is grinning. "That's what they're best at."

The very pointed sound of a throat clearing shuts them all up instantly - it is a sound they all know only too well. All four of their heads snap up simultaneously to find Leia looking at them coolly, a single brow arched high. "Are we all ready to begin?"

Thoroughly chastened, Rey gives a nod, head dropping slightly. From beside her, she feels a nudge and glances across to find Poe is quiet, but still grinning. He gives her a quick wink, then turns his full attention back to Leia. He is always doing things like that, small things - the perfect things at the perfect moment, designed specifically to offer exactly the sort of support needed at the time. She is not the only beneficiary of this particular talent of his; he doles it out freely, to anyone he deems needs it.

"Good afternoon, everyone," Leia says crisply, pulling Rey's thoughts back to the here and now.

Rey lifts her head, eyes drawn immediately to the General, who stands before the assembled throng with a cool elegance that Rey admires so much, but knows she will never be able to duplicate. Leia was born to command; a natural leader, in the truest sense of the word.

The General crosses her arms behind her back, one wrist grasping the other - her "battle stance", as the boys like to call it. To everyone else, it is Leia Organa at her most controlled and powerful. But to Rey…

Well, it always makes Rey's heart ache to see it.

Because Leia isn't the only person she knows who stands that way - it is her son's go-to stance as well. She sees so _much_ of him when she sees his mother; hears so much of him when the General speaks. They are, she knows, far more alike than either of them even realize.

She very much doubts that either of them would be pleased to hear it, either.

"I know you're all wondering why this meeting was called so hastily," Leia continues, "so I'll get right to it." A slight pause; Leia looks around the room. "You are all aware that we have been making overtures of alliance toward the government of Naboo. Unfortunately, our connections in Theed informed us today that this has not gone unnoticed. The First Order is not only aware of our attempts, but has responded in kind."

With that revelation, it is as if the air has been sucked out of the room. Naboo is far from the most important planet in the galaxy, but their support would have been invaluable. The Resistance is short on friends, at the moment, and they had _needed_ this…

"General," Poe calls, and Rey can hear the strain in his voice, feel the tension in his body as he stands beside her, "are you saying that the First Order _attacked_ Naboo?"

Leia stops, turns - there is a strange look on her face, one that Rey cannot place. "No, Commander Dameron, I'm not. I'm saying that the First Order _responded in kind._ They have reached out to Naboo through diplomatic channels - just as we did - and requested a meeting with Queen Sarela to negotiate the terms of a potential alliance - again, just as we did."

Silence falls over the room - a deep, thoroughly shocked silence.

"That's not how the First Order operates," Finn insists finally, drawing all eyes to him. "They don't _negotiate_ anything. If they're saying that's what they're after, they're lying. It's gotta be a trap."

"My first instinct as well," Leia agrees, nodding. "However...further intelligence suggests that the meeting has been arranged and that a representative of the First Order is even now on their way to Naboo."

"Yeah, along with their _entire_ fleet, I bet," Poe says sharply.

From her other side, Finn takes a step forward, as serious as Rey has ever seen him. "General...we have to go help them."

Leia, however, waves them off. "First of all, if it _is_ a trap, then it's not for Naboo. It's for us. Rushing off with what little fleet we've managed to rebuild would be playing right into their hands," she pauses, shakes her head. "I have to be honest though, based on the reports I've seen - and from some of our most trusted sources - it looks like this is a legitimate attempt at diplomacy on the First Order's part."

Rey, who has been watching the General very closely, feels her heart turn over in her chest. The look on Leia's face...she knows that look. She has _worn_ that look.

It is _hope_. Tentative and grudging, but there all the same. The kind of hope that burns rather than comforts because the odds of it proving baseless are far, far too great.

Taking a deep breath, Rey closes her eyes for a moment, gathers herself. When she opens her eyes again, Leia is looking right at her, dark eyes - _so_ much like his - sharp with anticipation. Swallowing, Rey meets the challenge in her gaze, accepting the unspoken invitation. "General…" her voice is quiet, but it cuts through the room with ease and she can feel every eye now turned on her, " _who_ is the First Order sending to Naboo?"

"All reports are that the Supreme Leader himself has decided to oversee the negotiations."

The room around them bursts into a flurry of shocked chatter - but Rey finds that she can't say another word, can't tear her eyes from Leia's. Inside, though, the hope flares from an ember to a flame, her heart thumping hard.

It is an unprecedented move. Undeniably risky, on his part. She has no doubt that his primary goal is to undercut the alliance that the Resistance had been trying to make...but that he chose _this_ path, rather than force…

It is, at the very least, _something_.

Almost vibrating with energy now, she waits until someone else claims Leia's attention before glancing around. Everyone is discussing what has happened and she knows that there are plans to be made and endless opinions to be shared...but she has no patience for that at the moment.

Instead, she lowers her head and makes her way calmly toward the door, using just the tiniest bit of Force-persuasion to keep anyone from noticing her departure. They may wonder later where she disappeared to, but she knows she will have had time to come up with a suitable excuse by then.

Right now though, she _needs_ to see him, to talk to him. At the very least, she has to try.

Once she is clear of the Command Center, she hurries her pace, bypassing all of the more commonly utilized areas of the base and heading straight for her chamber, tucked away as it is in the farthest corner of the base.

She tears the curtain closed behind her and then, without another thought, she closes her eyes, flings her senses wide open.

 _Ben!_

* * *

He has decided - against Hux's wishes, naturally - not to make the trip to Naboo aboard the Finalizer. It had caused something of a stir amongst the Generals, who had assumed that the expedition would be carried out with a full complement of First Order Navy Ships in tow. For the sake of appearances, he had made a show of considering it, but he had known all along that such a move would have proved extraordinarily counterproductive to the outcome he was seeking.

Yes, he wants to convince the Naboo _not_ to ally with the Resistance. He does not, however, want to scare them into the decision, unless absolutely necessary.

As such, he boarded his shuttle - minus all the pomp and circumstance that Snoke had demanded on the rare occasions when he left the Supremacy - along with a small contingent of officers that he at least half-way trusted and left the Finalizer behind with barely a backward glance. It does not thrill him to leave Hux with free reign over his forces for the next several days, but the only alternative would have been to insist that Hux accompany him...and he knows exactly how _that_ would turn out.

Hux may have his uses, but none of them extend to diplomacy. He'd have been spitting threats and demands from the minute they touched down in Theed.

Again, not exactly the impression he hopes to make upon the Naboo.

It does not take long for the shuttle to rendezvous with the ship that he has chosen to make his flagship for this particular trip - The Exemplar is a Maxima-A class heavy cruiser under the command of Captain Jessa Krieg, one of the few CO's in the entire First Order to actually hold his unequivocal good opinion.

She is there to meet him as he steps off his shuttle in the landing bay, entirely unchanged from the last time he saw her - a stone-faced woman with steel gray hair, piercing blue eyes and a stately bearing. She greets him with cool aplomb, offering him a bow that manages to be gracious without sinking into obsequiousness. He returns it with a courteous nod of his own - something he generally doesn't bother to do with the rest of his command staff. But, he has always admired her and her hard-nosed, no-nonsense mentality.

And if she reminds him of someone in particular...well...he elects not to dwell on it too deeply.

"Supreme Leader," she greets as he moves to stand before her - towering over her really, though she does not look intimidated in the least. "It is a great honor to have you on board the Exemplar, my lord."

If he is being perfectly honest with himself, he would prefer to do without the honorifics - they have never worn comfortably on him. However, he knows they are a necessity he will just have to deal with. "Captain Krieg," he offers in return. "I thank you for your hospitality in receiving me. I assume you have been fully briefed on the mission."

"I have, my lord," she says, offering another, respectful dip of her chin. They are walking now, he taking pains to limit his stride so as not to outpace her. He is many things - most of them not terribly good - but he will not let it be said that he is unnecessarily rude. "The Exemplar and her crew look forward to aiding you in this in any way you might need." She stops, and he can feel her measuring her next words before she speaks them.

"I...would be very pleased," she says eventually, "to see this mission successful, my lord."

There is a world of meaning in that simple statement - far more than the sum of the words alone. "As would I, Captain," he admits, feeling strangely bolstered by the support. "As such, I would appreciate it if you would show me to my quarters. I have a great deal of preparation to do."

"Of course, my lord. Everything has been made ready for your arrival - I only hope you find it satisfactory."

A few minutes later, Captain Krieg delivers him to the stateroom that has been prepared for him, departing swiftly thereafter with the promise that they will be ready to make way directly. He thanks her as she leaves, dismisses the officers who had been trailing along after them, and closes the door behind them. While he does, in fact, have much preparation to do...most of it is emotional, rather than practical.

He plans to spend most of the three day trip to Naboo in meditation. He is well aware that his temper - the one that Snoke spent the better part of three decades honing - will do him no favors in this.

Surveying the space - far smaller than his quarters on the Finalizer, but just as antiseptic - he moves forward into it, one gloved hand running along the back of a low slung chair as he passes through the small sitting room. There is a bedroom and a 'fresher and his effects have already been situated in each.

Reaching up, he pulls his cloak off and tosses it across the foot of the bed. His gloves follow, landing in a heap on top of his cloak. He sheds his boots as well, though these he leaves on the floor beside the bed.

Far closer to comfortable now, he returns to the sitting room and immediately begins shifting furniture with carefully controlled flicks of his fingers. After a few minutes of maneuvering, he is satisfied with the amount of free space available to him and moves to stand in the center of it. Just as he sinks to the floor, legs crossing in an old, familiar pattern, the ship gives a lurch - the jump to hyperspace has been made.

He turns his head, dark hair falling into his eyes as he looks out the viewport, watching space streak by outside and feeling a surge of relief.

Naboo lays ahead...and Hux blessedly behind.

It is time to begin…

 _Ben!_

Her shout is loud and entirely unexpected - so much so that he nearly jumps out of his skin. When she appears across the room a bare moment later, he scrabbles to his feet in an uncoordinated tangle of limbs, any grace he possesses lost in his rush to get to her.

"Rey!" He moves toward her as soon as his feet are under him, heart in his throat and head clear of every thought but _her_.

They meet half-way, each of them crashing to a halt only inches from one another, both of them breathing hard, as if they've run much farther than the few feet that separated them. She _looks_ fine, but he knows better than most how deceiving appearances can be. It's clear that something has happened though - her face is pale, eyes large and dark as she stares up at him, studying him intently.

She looks at him as if he is a puzzle she can't quite work out; a problem she wants to solve but can't. He understands the feeling - she has spent most of the last year confusing the hell out of him, too.

"Rey," he breathes, eyes on her face and hands curling into fists at his sides, fingers aching with the desire to reach for her. "Rey...are you hurt? What's the matter?"

"Nothing," she says in a rush, her own hands twisting in the hem of her tunic, knuckles showing white from the force of her grip. "Nothing's the matter...I just…"

She stops, lowers her eyes. He watches, utterly fascinated, as she takes a moment to center herself - can actually _feel_ her gather the frayed threads of her energy and smooth them back into order. When she opens her eyes, he can _see_ her resolve, bright and fierce.

"Ben, I need to know...is it true?"

The words are soft, but firm - she is all strength and determination now, an absolute wonder to behold. He is so caught up in just _watching_ her that it takes him a minute to realize what she's said. When he does, he frowns - at a loss - and shakes his head slightly. "Is what true?"

Her jaw clenches, shoulders straightening; preparing herself. "Naboo," she says tightly. "Is it true that you're going to Naboo to negotiate an alliance? Or is it a trap?'

Several very different thoughts occur to him then, all at the same time. The first is that the Resistance clearly has a healthier spy network than they have suspected - that one, he puts away for later consideration. The second, is that he isn't sure what answer she wants from him. Neither means anything good, as far as the Resistance is concerned.

And then, of course, there's the problem of sharing tactical information with a known enemy conspirator...

He stares down at her, considering. In coming to him and asking him about Naboo, she has revealed quite a bit of sensitive tactical information of her own - though he doubts it even occurs to her that she has. The least that he can do is return the favor; answer her trust (no matter how unconsciously given) with a bit of his own.

"It isn't a trap."

Her eyes widen at the admission; a quick flash of happiness lights up her face before she viciously clamps back down on her emotions.

"Then what _is_ it?"

There is an edge to the question, an undercurrent of excitement that she doesn't quite manage to conceal. He narrows his eyes, attempting to read her without actually utilizing anything but his own powers of observation - he doubts she would welcome anything deeper. "It's exactly what you said earlier," he says at last, deciding to go with the truth - as he has always done with her. "I am going to Naboo under a flag of truce, to attempt and negotiate an alliance that would preclude any Resistance collusion."

He braces himself for her reaction, expecting to see all that lovely excitement drain out of her face. She will begin to back away at any moment, and those large, dark eyes will skewer him with the same vicious disappointment that she had cut him with all those months ago aboard the Supremacy.

"Why?"

The question is unexpected and he blinks, frowns. "Why, what? Why am I doing it?" He shakes his head. "Because I can't allow the Resistance to gain even a single ally, let alone a planet with the sort of influence that Naboo wields."

"No," Rey huffs, taking a tiny step toward him - looking up at him with an urgency that he is desperately trying to understand, but can't. "Why are you using _diplomacy_?"

His frown deepens into a scowl. "You'd prefer I just blow them up? I _told_ you, Rey...all those months ago, after I killed Snoke - I'm tired of the way things have always been done. I am trying to forge a new path for the Galaxy, and I can't do that if I'm falling back on the unsuccessful tactics of the past."

She laughs then, and brings one hand up to press against her lips. "Let the past die," she murmured from behind her fingers. Dropping her hand, she shakes her head, ever so slightly. "I didn't believe you. I thought..."

"You thought that I was manipulating you," he cuts in bitterly, not moving an inch but pulling away from her all the same. He straightens, spine going rigid and shoulders lifting proudly as he glares down at her. "I'm not surprised - it's only natural that you wouldn't believe me. I am, like you said, a monster…"

" _Ben_ …"

Her expression has turned pained now, brows furrowed in a pinched frown. She lifts her hand toward him, but it stalls mid-air, fingers hovering in the empty space between them.

He ignores it; doesn't let it stop him from saying what he suddenly, desperately needs her to hear.

"But I wasn't lying," he says firmly. "I know what I am, Rey. But I also know what I…" he stops, the words lodging painfully in his throat, "...what I...am _not_." His jaw trembles and he bites down hard on his back teeth, trying desperately to keep his composure. He has no illusions about himself. He has done terrible things - caused pain, ended lives. He is, as she has said, a monster. But there is one thing that he _refuses_ to be…

"Snoke would have destroyed Naboo." He swallows, lifts his chin, resolutely ignoring the tear that he can feel crawling down his cheek. "I'm not Snoke. I _will not_ be Snoke."

Rey makes a sound then, somewhere between a laugh and a sob, and then she is stepping even closer to him, very nearly pressed against him. Slowly, she lifts her hand, brushing the pads of her fingers gently across his cheek, brushing away the tear that had fallen.

It is so much like the last time, when she had brushed his hair away from his face, and yet, it is so much more. That had been an absent, almost accidental touch, but this...this is a caress. An _intentional_ and fully considered, caress. He sucks in a breath, holds it, his eyes locked on hers.

There is a softness on her face that he has never seen before, a pained sweetness that twists at his heart. She smiles softly up at him, as she skates the tip of her index finger down the line of the scar she had given him. "You're nothing like him," she assures, letting her hand drop from his face.

Before he even has time to mourn the loss of her touch, it returns - her slender fingers brushing against his and sending a tremor of remembrance up his arm and straight to his heart. Slowly, dreading the moment when she will remember herself and pull away from him again, he turns his hand beneath hers, calloused skin rasping against calloused skin until their hands are clasped, fingers laced and palms pressed together.

Unconsciously, they lean into one another, eyes locked together in silent communion.

He can _feel_ her, everywhere, all around him - against his skin, in his heart, in his head. She is warm and so, so blindingly bright and he has never wanted anything the way that he wants this...wants _her_.

As if she can sense his thoughts, her pulse jumps under her skin, lips parting on a tiny, almost revelatory, gasp. " _Ben_ …"

His eyes are on her lips now, studying the way they part around the single syllable of _that_ name - the name he has spent a lifetime trying to erase, and which she seems determined to remind him of. He thinks...he thinks he could grow to like it again, one day...if only she would keep saying it like _that_ …

"Rey!"

The shout of her name cuts through the tension between them, slicing it in two and they both leap back from one another, Rey whirling around to look behind her.

"Gen...General Organa…" she says, and her own voice is loud, terrified.

For his part, he is frozen, locked in place by the sound of a voice that he has not heard in nearly a decade. Eyes staring past Rey now, he sees her...Leia Organa…

 _Mother…_

She is looking right back at him, her face carefully and deliberately blank. He knows that his own is not nearly as controlled, can feel his mouth tremble and the muscle beneath his eye twitch. She opens her mouth...but the connection slams shut, and both she and Rey disappear, leaving him alone in his quarters once more.

He stares at the spot where his mother had stood for a long moment, then he drops his head to his chest, curls the fingers of the hand that Rey had been holding into a fist. There will be consequences for this, he knows - consequences for Rey.

For Leia Organa's sake - for the sake of the entire Resistance - he hopes that they are not too harsh. Because if they hurt her…

The fury wells up then, surging from beneath the control that he has worked so hard to gain. If they hurt her, he will hunt them down.

If they hurt her, he will _end_ them.

* * *

 **A/N: So, a few years back, I wrote a LONG story - 250k+ words. It took months and months and months to finish and post. This story already has nearly as many follows as that one, and it is truly exciting for me! Thank you all so much for taking the time to read this! Every time I get a notification for a follow/fave or review, it makes me smile from ear to ear.**


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N: Ok, so...I suck. Believe me, I know I do. I won't make any promises about the frequency of chapters, but I can say that I am going to do my level best to update more often. Thanks, as always, to my beta - Xaraphis. If it weren't for her pestering, this chapter still wouldn't be finished!**

* * *

For several very long moments, there is nothing but silence in the small alcove that Rey has made her own over the past weeks.

General Organa - Rey doubts she still has the right to call her anything less formal - stands rigid, her dark eyes riveted to the empty space where Ben had been. Rey does not move, her stomach churning and a lump of dread sitting heavy in her chest.

The exact thing that she had never, ever wanted to happen, has happened. And it has happened in perhaps the worst way possible. Of all the people who _could_ have found them out, it _would_ have to be the General…

"I've felt him, you know," Leia says, her voice low and strained. "For a long time now, I've felt his presence. I thought," she stops, blows out a tremulous breath, "I thought it was just my imagination. I never dreamt..."

Her words trail off, but Rey can feel the emotions pouring off the other woman in roiling waves. Heartbreak and anger; longing and misery. So many conflicting feelings and the dizzying force of them, all at once, is nearly overwhelming. She has no idea what to say - wonders if there is anything that she _can_ say.

She has enough trouble making sense of her own emotions where Ben is concerned; she knows she is entirely unequipped to deal with Leia's.

After several extraordinarily long moments, the silence grows stifling, the heaviness of the air pressing in on her, and Rey takes a tiny step toward the older woman, determined to at least _try_ to salvage the situation. "General Organa," she says, forcing the words out, "please...let me explain."

"Explain." The word is rough - low and rasped and almost vibrating with restrained anger. The General turns her head sharply, expression piercing in its intensity. "Yes. You're going to explain. You were holding hands with the Supreme Leader of the First Order _in your bedroom_ , Rey. Not only are you going to explain _why_ , you're also going to explain how it is even possible in the first place, and you're going to do it _now_."

She was right - there is nothing of _Leia_ in the woman standing before her now. This is the _General_ , through and through. Rey swallows hard, clenches her hands to hide their shaking.

"We're connected," she says simply, offering a helpless shrug and a shake of her head. "Our thoughts...our feelings. We...we _talk_ to one another. _Understand_ one another. I...it's...honestly I don't know how to explain it beyond that. The Force…"

The General scoffs at that, rolling her eyes, expression tightening. "That's going to be your excuse? _The Force made me do it_? Rey...he is our _enemy_ and you just admitted to me that you talk to him and that he can sense your thoughts. Do you have any idea how _dangerous_ that is for us?"

"I know how it must sound to you, but I have never revealed anything related to the Resistance to him," Rey assures, as calmly as she can. "You have to understand, General...there is so much more to it…"

"I don't care how much _more_ there is to it, Rey!" General Organa takes a step toward her, fury turning her dark eyes nearly black. "You are putting us all at risk! No...you're putting the entire Resistance at risk and you're doing it not only knowingly, but _willingly._ "

The words themselves sting - but it is the disappointment and hostility behind them that truly gut her. At the same time, she can feel the first, faint stirring of indignation.

"I understand your anger, General," she says quietly. "But if you would only listen…"

"Listen to _what_?" Leia snaps out. "What do you think you could possibly say to make this ok, Rey? He is our enemy - he wants nothing more than to wipe me and you and all of _this_ ," she makes a sharp, sweeping gesture with one arm, "out of existence!"

The flicker of indignation flares, but Rey quashes it ruthlessly. She needs to make the General understand and she cannot allow her own anger to get in the way; not when Leia already has more than enough of it for both of them, at present.

"That isn't true," she corrects, tone somewhere between insistence and pleading. "At least, not entirely. He's not the monster you think he is - not really. There is goodness in him - I've seen it. I've _felt_ it. If you could only see Ben the way I've been able to…"

" _Ben_ ," the General cuts in, voice flat, "is gone. There is only Kylo Ren now, and if he has tried to convince you otherwise, he is _lying,_ Rey. He is _using_ you. Manipulating you for his own purposes."

 _That_ rankles more than anything else that's been said. She is not the too-trusting and woefully inexperienced girl that Leia had met on D'Qar. Nor is she the overconfident fool who rushed away from Ach-To and straight into Snoke's clutches. She has grown since then - far more than she is being given credit for, and she refuses to pretend otherwise. "No, he isn't," she states, chin coming up proudly. "You may not believe it, but it's the truth."

The General's eyes narrow, and she shakes her head with that same air of vicious disappointment. "You're right - I _don't_ believe it and I never will. You don't know him the way I do, Rey."

"No, I don't," Rey admits, her temper flaring. "I know him _better_ than you do."

Bristling, the General's eyes are nearly glowing with fury now. "He is _my son_ …"

"You knew Ben Solo, the child," Rey cuts in, knowing that the words are harsh, but also knowing that they need to be said. "I know Ben Solo, the _man_. There is an enormous difference between the two."

The General recoils at that, and Rey can see a flash of raw, reeling pain cut through her anger, but it is gone almost at once, locked away behind impenetrable walls built of experience and necessity. Leia Organa, Rey knows, has suffered more anguish in her lifetime than any one person should ever have to - and she long ago learned how to shoulder it with dignity. Even now, despite the situation, Rey finds herself nearly overcome with admiration for the older woman and it dampens her anger.

"I was there, you know," she rushes to say, cutting off any response the General might have made. "On the Supremacy. I was with him when he killed Snoke."

The walls in those dark eyes hold fast, revealing nothing and concealing everything. The General narrows her eyes, fixing Rey with a fierce glare. "I do know - you reported as much at the time. You were there when he killed his Master and usurped his throne - I'm not sure how you think that will change my mind about anything."

Rey remembers that report. It had all been so new - her entire world turned upside down. She had been thrust into the middle of a large group of people she didn't know and told to give a briefing on everything that had happened on the Supremacy. Needless to say, she had _not_ , in fact, told them everything at the time. She hadn't known how to word it to herself, let alone to anyone else.

Now, she will have to find the words. Find them and make them _count_.

"That isn't why he killed Snoke."

The General shakes her head; scoffs. "Oh, yes, I'm sure he had a perfectly noble reason…"

Rey takes a step forward, eyes blazing. "He saved my life, Leia," her voice is hard, the words strong and sure. "Snoke ordered him to kill me - he killed Snoke instead. Ben - _your son_ \- is not lost. Not yet."

She can see it - the tiniest crack in the General's armor. There is the faintest, most delicate spark of _hope_ in her eyes, and it makes Rey's heart soar to see it. Even a spark that tiny can be fanned into a flame, given the right encouragement. It disappears all too quickly though, pushed away, out of sight behind the walls that have come crashing down once more.

"Maybe you're right," the General says after a moment, and her voice is calm but stern - her _command_ voice, "but that isn't a risk I'm willing to take, Rey. I can't have someone within my ranks fraternizing with the enemy right under our very noses. So I need to ask you and you need to tell me the truth - can the connection be broken?"

It is a question that Rey has asked herself many times before, and one that she thinks she knows the answer to. "I don't think it can be _broken_ ," she says, "but it can be closed. I've done it before. Just after Crait...I shut him out for quite some time."

"Good," Leia cuts in, nodding sharply. "Do it again. _Now_ , if possible. I'm not leaving this room until I have every assurance that there will be _no_ further contact between yourself and the Supreme Leader."

She did not phrase it as an ultimatum, but Rey recognizes it as one all the same. The unspoken _or else_ is fairly obvious, really. A month ago, it would not have even been a question - she would have shut the bond immediately. Even then, it would have pained her, but she would have done it.

But now…

She imagines it - shutting him out entirely. Never again feeling the rush of their connection. Never again seeing the way his eyes - always so dark and grim - brighten at the first sight of her. Never again feeling the brush of his mind against hers; that feeling of such perfect _rightness_ …

Rey isn't a fool - she knows what her refusal will mean. The life that she has created for herself here will be lost to her. Her friends - _Finn_ , _Rose, Poe, Chewie, Leia_ \- they will all be lost to her. But she knows she is right about this. Knows that she is right about _him_.

She won't abandon him. Not now. Not ever.

"I can't do that." She swallows, squares her shoulders, meets Leia's eyes. "I _won't_ do that. To either of us."

Leis rears back at that, clearly shocked. "You _won't_ …"

"He is _trying_ , Leia. _So_ hard. If I walk away from him now…" she stops, shakes her head. "I won't do it. I won't give up on him." She turns away, moves to her bed and pulls her knapsack out from beneath it. "I'll leave today. You won't have to worry about me giving anything away if I'm not here anymore."

She begins moving around the room, collecting her things and shoving them into the bag and very purposely _not_ looking at the General while she does it. She is not waiting to be stopped, because she knows that she won't be - Leia is far too practical and pragmatic to do anything so stupid. Rey is going to have to leave, as she has always known she would if the bond was discovered. She wishes things could be different...but she has made her choice.

The only choice she _can_ make.

As she is loading the last of her meagre belongings into the bag, Leia steps forward, puts out a hand and lays it atop Rey's, stopping her mid-motion.

"There is so much good in you, Rey," she says carefully, offering a brittle smile. "I know that it's only natural that you want to believe the same thing about others, as well. But this...don't throw your life away for him, Rey. You have a _family_ here; people who _care_ about you. He...Kylo Ren isn't _worth_ this kind of a sacrifice."

"Kylo Ren might not be," she says, meeting Leia's eyes squarely. "But _Ben Solo_ is. I hope you'll see that one day."

She pulls her hand away and turns back to her packing, but she can feel the General's temper flare at her words; can feel the surge of anger through the Force - and it feels so _familiar_ that Rey almost laughs. They are so very much _alike_...

"How can you say that? How can you _defend_ him after everything he's done? He killed his own _father_. He killed _Han_ ," her voice breaks on the name and Rey turn to face her just as she closes her eyes, gathers herself. When she opens them again, her expression has gone cold and distant. "And what he did to _Luke_ …"

"No." Rey whips around, eyes blazing. "I'll say nothing about Han, because there is nothing _to_ say. I won't defend the indefensible. But Luke...you have _no_ idea what really happened that night, Leia."

The General straightens, chin lifting - the picture of icy disdain. "Luke told me…"

"I'm quite certain I know what Luke told you," Rey snaps. "I'm also quite certain that I know what he _didn't_ tell you. At least, I assume his version left out the part where Ben woke to find himself staring down the blade of _his uncles_ lightsaber."

"What?"

The word is short and sharp and cracks through the room like a blaster bolt. Rey's lips press together, her abandoned fury for the old Jedi Master reasserting itself with a vengeance at the confirmation that he had, in fact, failed to tell his sister the _truth_. "Yeah. Thought it might have," she says simply, then turns away again and keeps packing. "He left that bit out the first time he told _me_ the story as well. Apparently, Ben didn't take it terribly well. Can't _imagine_ why not..."

"Even if…" Leia's voice breaks slightly on the words, and Rey hates to hear it - hates that she has to be the one to deliver this blow. "Even _if_ what you say is true, it hardly excuses what he did after that."

"No, it doesn't," Rey agrees - and wholeheartedly so. She shuts her pack, lifts it and slings it onto her shoulder. "But the whole truth _matters_ , Leia. Your son didn't just turn to the Dark Side...he was _pushed_. He spent his entire life believing the worst of himself. Luke's actions that night proved to him that he was right to."

Crossing the room to her small table, she grabs up the bag that holds all of the books, scrolls, holocrons and artifacts that she has collected and tosses it over her other shoulder. Last but not least, she lifts her new lightsaber from where it lays beside a half-drunk cup of caf and clips it to her belt.

Turning around, Rey falters slightly, her righteous anger on Ben's behalf softening at the sight that greets her eyes. General Leia Organa - the strongest woman she has ever known - is sitting on the edge of Rey's narrow cot, elegant hands balled into fists in her lap and tears dripping down her cheeks as she stares off into nothing.

"I didn't know," Leia says softly, the words choked. "Luke told me what happened…"

"...and you believed him without question," Rey finishes, not liking to be cruel, but unable to keep the thoughts in check anymore. "You believed the worst of your son and never, ever questioned it." She moves past Leia then, flinching as she hears a quiet sob from behind her. Stopping just at the door, Rey turns back one last time, her expression pained but determined. "His entire life, everyone he has ever loved has given up on him. But I won't. He believes himself to be a monster, just as much as you do. Someday, he'll see himself clearly. I'll make sure of it."

With that, she turns away for the last time and heads for the hangar, taking care to steer clear of anyone that she hears coming. Leia hadn't said anything, but Rey knows that it would be best to leave quietly. Not only for herself, but for the Resistance in general. To lose her...it will be a blow to morale, she knows.

But it will be infinitely worse if they know _why_ she is leaving.

And so, she goes quietly - slips aboard a small transport ship, stows her gear, and makes for the stars. She doesn't know where she's going until the course is set, allowing instinct to guide her fingers as she plugs in the coordinates.

It isn't until the ship makes the jump to hyperspace that she allows herself to break down. The tears come swiftly after that, and they don't stop for a very long time.

* * *

It is deep into the night and the bustling metropolis of Theed has gone still and quiet, save for the ever present rumble of the waterfalls that pour from the cliffs beneath the palace.

As a child, he had been fascinated by those waterfalls - can, in fact, recall getting into a great deal of trouble for attempting to climb down the cliffs to get a closer look at them. He can still hear his mother's frantic shouts...feel the pressure of her surprisingly strong grip on his arm as she yanked him away from the edge…

She had torn into him with a fierceness that had surprised him, for once not caring in the least where they were or who was watching. And he - sad and solitary and greedy for attention - had learned a powerful lesson that day. Being good earned him little, being bad earned him less...but being reckless?

Being reckless earned him his mother's full and undivided attention.

At least, for a time. Ultimately, it was that very recklessness, coupled with his seemingly bottomless well of power, that saw him shipped off to his Uncle's temple for good.

And it all started right here, on Naboo...and he is far from the first of the Skywalker bloodline to be able to say as much.

He stands now upon the wide balcony that spills out from the large, sumptuous apartment appointed to him; eyes focused high above the towering turrets and domed rooftops of the city. The breeze is sweet and cool and slightly damp with the spray of the waterfalls below.

Enjoying the feel of it on his face, he traces the invisible lines of the constellations he had learned as a child, trying to make his insides match the serenity of the night that has fallen around him. So far, it isn't working terribly well.

He is restless. Frustrated and anxious to the point that he feels as if he is once more walking the razor's edge of those treacherous cliffs below.

Because it has been over a week now since the last time he saw or heard from Rey. Over a week since they were discovered by his mother. Over a week since her pale, terrified face disappeared from his sight.

Their connection has neither triggered on its own, nor been initiated by her...and he is far too much of a coward to reach out himself, terrified of what he might find.

He doesn't know what has happened to her. Doesn't know if she is ok. Doesn't know if she has, once again, sealed herself off from him - for good, this time.

And the _not knowing_ is like a vice around his heart, squeezing at his insides and leaving him raw and ragged and terrified at precisely the worst possible time.

Luckily, he has spent the better part of his life learning how to bury his anxieties deep and it is a skill that he has exercised with impunity since his arrival on Naboo. So far, he has managed to hide his fears during the day, allowing none of it to affect the time spent at the bargaining table.

But at night...at night, he can barely _breathe._

He closes his eyes, feeling the lump of dread expand in the center of his chest and run like ice water through his veins. Taking several long, deep breaths, he tries to tame the terror. To center himself.

He knows from long, painful experience that he is incapable of pushing his thoughts of Rey away entirely. She is far too stubborn - even in his head - to allow such a thing. But he can, he has found, nudge her aside for a time.

So, he focuses his thoughts elsewhere, mulling over the thing that has brought him to Naboo in the first place...and the pressure in his chest eases ever so slightly.

He has done well, he thinks.

The atmosphere of defiant suspicion that had hung, thick and heavy, over the first day of negotiations, has settled now into a sort of wary bemusement. He has surprised them all, and in a _good_ way, no less. The proceedings have become more open and productive with each session that passes and it seems as if they might just be creeping slowly toward common ground.

He opens his eyes, breaths coming easier now, and resumes his perusal of the stars above, even as his mind replays the events of the past three days.

There is, he has found, something truly satisfying in engaging in frank, honest discussion with a group of intelligent, _reasonable_ people.

He is actually beginning to believe that this grand gambit of his might succeed after all. That it might truly be possible to truly _unite_ the Galaxy beneath a banner of communion, rather than simply grinding it to dust beneath his boot.

The thought carries with it a warmth that feels vaguely - if distantly - familiar. He hesitates to call it pride, and yet, there is something of pride in it. But it is of a different quality than the sort that he's become accustomed to.

This feeling is smaller. Simpler.

 _Better_.

A shadow moves in his peripheral vision and a soft, gray form materializes beside him. He does not have to look - he knows what it is. _Who_ it is.

"The phrase you're looking for is self-respect," Skywalker murmurs, his own eyes lifted to the heavens. "Feels pretty good, doesn't it?"

He waits for the anger to come - for the fury to well up within him - and cannot help but be surprised when it doesn't. His mind is absorbed in the tentative hope of success, his heart is consumed by his fears for Rey and the rest of him is caught firmly between the two. As such, he finds that he simply doesn't have the energy to hate Luke Skywalker.

At least, not tonight.

Sighing, he shuts his eyes, breathes deep - _considers_. "It does," he says at last. "Very good, actually. I think…" he stops, the words catching in his throat. Opening his eyes, he casts a quick, furtive glance at the solemn figure standing beside him. "I think," he begins again, quietly, "that I'd like to feel it more often."

He isn't sure who is more surprised by his frankness.

Certainly, he can feel the shock fairly radiating from the ghostly figure at his side and he knows that his uncle is staring at _him_ now, rather than the stars. "You mean that."

It isn't a question, but he finds himself nodding anyway. "I do."

Silence falls between them then and he knows that his uncle is reading him - body and spirit - with eyes that he suspects can see far clearer in death than they ever had in life. He allows it; curious, despite himself, about what the old man can discern. Eventually though, he begins to chafe beneath the weight of all that focus and takes a few steps forward, large hands falling to wrap tightly around the balustrade.

A moment later, Luke steps up beside him, though he drops his elbows onto the railing, leaning heavily against the hewn stone. "Be mindful of your motivations," he says at last. "Change for someone else's benefit rarely lasts."

He snorts at that, turns and meets his uncle's eyes, noting the genuine concern he can see in them. "You think I don't know that? You think that wasn't made _abundantly_ clear to me over the course of my childhood?"

The unspoken name of his father hung between them then; that quicksilver, smuggler's grin a knife that cut both ways.

Luke sighed, shook his head - sadness settling heavy across his shoulders. "He always loved you, Ben. Even when…"

"Even when he was climbing aboard the Falcon and leaving me behind," he cut in sharply, though for the first time in a very long time, the thought left him feeling more tired than angry. "He may have loved me, but he loved his freedom more."

"Which is precisely my point." Luke leaned in, expression deadly serious. "Han never should have been a father, and the only reason he even _tried_ was for Leia's sake. Don't repeat your father's mistakes, Ben. I know how you feel about Rey…"

"I'm not doing this for her."

"Ben," Luke shook his head, "you can't tell me that all of this isn't because of her!"

"Of course it's _because_ of her," he agrees, snapping the words like whipcracks. "Before her, I didn't even know that there _was_ a choice. I was what I was - I was what everyone had always known me to be. But she…"

He stops, the words dying on his lips. He may feel the need to make his uncle understand _this_ , but that desire hardly extends to making his uncle understand _everything_. "The changes I am attempting to make may have begun _because_ of her, but I can assure you, they aren't _for_ her."

There must be something in his voice, some tone of truth, because he can see the tension drain out of Luke's face. "Then who, Ben? Whose benefit are you changing for?"

Their eyes remain locked for a long, seemingly endless moment. He knows what his uncle wants to hear. For the first time ever, he does not fear disapproval of his own, honest answer. Because, for once, he thinks that he and Skywalker might actually be on the same page.

He draws himself up to his full height, staring down at his uncle with a fierce, unyielding pride - the kind that he never even knew he had it within himself to feel.

He had spent a lifetime being shaped by others. It was past time that he shaped his own destiny.

 _Whose benefit are you changing for?_

"Mine," he says, firmly. Simply.

And it might just be the truest thing he has ever said.


End file.
